The Legend of Yang (Book One: Identity)
by VarrickIndustries
Summary: Sixteen years after Korra's death, no Avatar's to be found. The Earth Kingdom is empty. An adopted "nonbender," raised by Air Nomads, soon realizes his greatness as he bends land for the first time. Likewise, the United Republic, a self-declared nation, is conquering land…in the Spirit World. With a clash of traditional vs. progressive ideals, how will Avatar Yang maintain balance?
1. Chapter 1: Stiff, Part One

_Present Day_

"It's been sixteen years since Avatar Korra's passing. Is it possible that Vaatu destroyed the avatar cycle as well? Will the four nations no longer have their 'bringer of peace' or 'bridge' of spirits? After searching for a decade, whatever people searched for the avatar have quit for over five years now. The Earth Kingdom has no recorded avatar. If there ever was an earthbending avatar, he or she must have died at birth! Without the spiritual leader, it looks like Republic City's descent into chaos will expand further than Avatar Korra could've imagined."

_One Year Ago_

"Mmm, honey, could you pass me some more rice? This is the best bowl I've had all day!" an airbender of forty-four years says with enthusiasm.

The man, named Tashi, is a well-known airbending master housed in the Southern Air Temple. He shares his large, one-room apartment with his wife, Igme, and his second child, Yang. Tashi's wrinkling face smiles as he eats his rice with chopsticks.

His wife, about forty, comes over with another bowl of rice. Igme is beautiful; her sleek brown hair is long and curves inward about the hips like a small cape. Her skin is a tanned white, though it is beginning to stretch with age. Both parents have blue tattoos occupying their bodies as a sign of their dedication and mastery of the airbending ways.

"I wonder how Yang is doing in class today?" Igme asks while going over to wash dishes.

"He's blowing them away!" Tashi jokes, but Igme only groans.

"Enough with the terrible jokes," she says with a shake of the head and a smile on the lips.

"I can't help it, it's like I'm breathing them!" Tashi bangs his fist on the table and laughs deep in his throat. He sighs in the recovery from his fit and looks up at the doorway to see a feeble man staring at them.

The man has long, gray whiskers like an old cat would. His eyes were tired and his arms were always bent inwards, bearing a clipboard as if it was an extra appendage. He stands erect as some sort of metaphor for his status—the Statue Of Aang's equivalent. His presence causes Tashi to get up from the table and Igme to walk over from the sink.

"Yeshe, my man! How's that old ba—wife of yours treating you?"

"Excuse me," the man inaudibly says, almost as if he waved the previous comment away, "I need to speak to you about your son's…progress."

"Alright…what of it? How is my boy doing? I bet he's blowing you away!"

"You already used that joke, dear," Igme reminds him with a point in the air.

"Yeah, but he didn't hear it," Tashi mutters.

"He's not blowing anyone away, Tashi," the man says solemnly.

Tashi and Igme exchange glances for a very long moment. Tashi opens his mouth, but only a mildly depressed expression replaces it. He sighs and pinches the skin between his eyes. He sits back down in his chair and feels the emotions coursing through his veins. As such a proud bender, he forces his tear ducts to block any excrement.

"I told you to give Yang a little push," Igme pipes up. "All he needs is a push."

"Even at fifteen, your child can't blow a gust of wind at anything—not even his tormenters. Igme, Yang can't airbend. Some of his peers are years away from gaining tattoos. Believe me, he gets pushed," the man, his eyes now staring at the floor beneath his feet, says with regret.

. . .

During recess, some of the airbenders play a game of airball. Random children step on tall, skinny poles of wood and control the air to levitate a ball of assorted, crescent-shaped holes above their hands. One kid slams the ball over another's head and knocks it in the goal with a gust of wind. The area is filled with laughter and excitement.

Out in the side, sitting on the steps up to the temple, sits a boy of about fifteen. His hair is brown and spiked in two places at the end, almost like one of those plastic forks, but with two prongs. His irises are a deep jade. He has a look of frustration upon his face, obviously from his issues of control.

"Yang?" a voice asks with a hint of caring in her voice.

"Oh, hey, Dolma," Yang says, his head staring away.

"Yang, don't you want to play?"

"I can't airbend, Dolma, you know that," he says, almost at the brink of crying.

"You'll get there—honest!"

Yang stands up and looks at the girl. She has deep brown eyes, big and understanding. He's always appreciated her eyes. She has a flawless face and long, flowing brown hair that reaches just short of her elbows. Dolma is the daughter of the Air Nation's leader, Airbending Master Jinora—granddaughter to Avatar Aang himself. Dolma has the capabilities of becoming an amazing airbender, but she's held back by her mother's disappointment in her.

"I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say," Yang explains, his brown hair bouncing slightly on his head as he speaks. "I'm not an airbender."

"Try to play airball with us—just this once," she pleads.

Dolma and Yang have been friends since Yang came to the Southern Air Temple at age two. The two stuck up for each other, though Yang has only just recently gotten some confidence in himself. They have done everything together—the best of friends.

Yang smiles. "Alright—just this once."

Dolma airbends the two of them up on the wooden poles and she gets the class's attention. After explaining Yang's participation, everyone awkwardly looks at him. The larger, meaner airbender in the class, Kaze, steps forward on the poles. Though he is more aggressive than some airbenders, he has the spirituality and agility of a powerful bender. He is heavyset with a bald head and a foul mouth.

"Why don't you go back to being a stiff in the dirt?" he giggles, among others.

"Just throw the ball. He'll be on my team," Dolma demands.

He looks Yang over for a moment and smiles. "Okay," he says, "then watch out!"

With teams of four on four, Kaze bends the ball over to the goal and almost makes it. Dolma summons a gust of wind to knock it into the air and Kaze counters back to spike it—right at Yang.

The ball slams into Yang's right shoulder, causing him to smash to the ground in utter defeat. A few benders giggle quietly, though Kaze is the loudest.

"That wasn't nice," Dolma says. "Yang, get back up. You can do it!"

Dolma gets the ball and airbends it straight into Kaze's belly, causing a small bubble of gas to emit out and embarrass the kid. Red in the face, he hits Dolma with the ball and causes her to fall backward. She lands on one of the pole ends, hitting the back of her head. She rubs it with her hand and airbends herself up. Looking back at her hand, a small smear of blood resides on her left palm.

"You made me bleed!" she panics.

Yang hears the commotion and slowly climbs up a pole as if it were a rope in gym class. Once he's up, he gets the ball and throws it straight at Kaze. It smacks him on the shoulder, though it doesn't do any damage.

"That's against the rules, Stiff," Kaze says.

Yang flinches at the nickname. "Stiff" is what he calls nonbenders; on their past field trip to the Earth Kingdom, he came up with the name after hearing their nonbending ratio. The name has stuck to Yang ever since.

"You're not exactly playing by the rules, either," Dolma points out.

The other benders get off the poles and help Dolma down as well. It's just Kaze versus Yang. The two stare down as Kaze gets the ball between his hands.

"Last one standing wins," he decides with a grin.

"Bring it on," Yang counters.

Kaze gets the ball and bends it straight at Yang's face, but he dodges and jumps onto a pole, though he jumps on the trunk of it and has to climb back up. Kaze gets another ball and barely misses Yang's face. Yang throws a ball and it makes contact with Kaze's feet, but it then falls down to the ground. Kaze smiles and aims his ball not at Yang, but at Dolma.

"She's not in this!"

"Air is the element of peace," he says as he thrusts the ball and almost hits the audience.

Yang feels a surge of anger. He stomps his foot and demands Kaze to cut it out.

Dolma, sitting down back where she was with Yang, notices a small crack in the ground from where Yang stomped. When he did it again, the crack got bigger. Her eyes grow wide and she calls out to him, though he cannot hear her.

"Don't worry, Stiff, I'm just joking. I'm spiritual, not cruel. Are you a spiritual bender?"

Yang's forehead hurts with a mix of headache and anger. Yang hops over to Kaze and thrusts his fist back in preparation for contact.

"Are you going to airbend me?" he laughs.

"No," Yang says, "I'm going to punch you."

In the background, an older figure walks over with a rather goofy look on his face. He goes to the recess area and finds the showdown between one of the better, though bitter, airbenders and the one nonbender in the group. He sits down behind Dolma and watches.

Kaze stands without making a move—a punch won't knock him down. Yang, surging with anger for both his friend and himself, throws the fist. Dolma watches as the crack from before outlines a circle of sorts, and then a chunk of rock is brought from the ground up through the sky. It follows the same motion as Yang's fist. He punches the air, as Kaze jumps back at the last second, and Yang loses his balance. The rock follows the fist further and smacks Kaze off the poles and into the dirt. Yang steadies himself and looks up to see Kaze gone.

The audience cheers. Kaze groans. Yang looks down to see a rock nearby, obviously pulled up from the ground, and a hurt Kaze. Yang hops down and walks over to Dolma.

"What happened? Did someone throw a rock?" he asks her.

"I-I think you did," she says with a look of pride and surprise.

"What?" Yang gasps.

Behind Dolma, a figure arises. He has messy salt-and-pepper hair, gray eyes, and a smile on his face. Yang knew who he was, but Dolma knows him even better.

"Uncle Meelo!" Dolma squeals with a hug around the airbending master's waist.

"I came running when I heard someone fartbend," he chuckles, "but I didn't expect to see Yang earthbend."

Yang looks confused. "With all due respect, sir, I'm a nonbender. I have been my whole life."

"No, we've been teaching you the complete opposite of earthbending. You're an earthbender! We have to go tell your parents the news!"

Meelo guides Yang away from the others and begins to walk toward Yang's parents' apartment. However, the elder then glances back to tell Dolma, who was following behind quietly, that her mother wanted to talk to her.

"Why?"

"I dunno, you know how uppity she is about being in charge."

. . .

"I'm sorry, but as a nonbender, Yang doesn't fit in with the others. Perhaps you could relocate him to Republic City and have him work at Future Industries? They're always hiring," Yeshe suggests.

"We both know Republic City isn't the 'city' that Avatar Korra departed. I'm not sending Yang to work in that dangerous place," Tashi shakes his head.

"No need! Your kid needs to go to Ba Sing Se," a familiar voice announces as he walks into the doorway.

"Oh, yes, let the whole Air Nation walk in the front door!" Igme wails.

"Oh, Igme, sometimes I really want to Airgni Kai you," Meelo smiles. "But seriously. Ba Singe Se is the place for Yang."

"Why?" Tashi asks.

"I'm an Earthbender, Dad," Yang says quietly.

Igme nearly faints and plants herself in a chair. Tashi runs his fingers through his hair in both disbelief and pride. Yeshe is full of only confusion, but Meelo is obviously happy about the optimistic turnout.

"How is that possible? Two airbenders make an earthbender?" Yeshe stammers.

"He's adopted—did I not tell you?" Tashi suddenly slows his wording and frowns a little.

"Adopted?!"

"That suddenly makes sense," Meelo nods.

"Jinora said we could keep him. We found him in Ba Sing Se in the first place," Igme says.

"Then you need to get him to Ba Singe Se so that fancy Earthbending Master can tutor him to his potential," Yeshe says.

"Does Jinora know?" Tashi asks.

"Considering Dolma saw the whole thing, I think she knew before we got to tell you guys," Meelo says.

. . .

"Mom, I don't want Yang to leave. We're friends," Dolma whines.

She sits on the opposite side of her mother's work desk. They reside in a small room in the temple; this is where Jinora does her private meetings.

"Well, if Yang is an earthbender, then he has to be taught by the best," Tenzin's daughter decides. "I'll call up an air bison and have Yang transported tomorrow."

"Can…Can I go?" she begs.

"Absolutely not. You have to earn your tattoos. Did you know I was three years younger than you when I got them?"

"So I've heard," Dolma mutters.

"Don't disrespect me. You can't go anywhere until you get your tattoos."

"You saved the world and your forehead was bare," Dolma begs.

Jinora looks up. She is just over five and a half feet tall, but her hair is up in a bun to make her taller. She wears square-framed reading glasses. Dolma's always pictured her as a beautiful librarian of sorts. Jinora, however, only focuses on the Air Nation—not her daughter.

"You can't go and that's final," she says with distaste. "That boy isn't for you anyway. Your father would be upset at your actions."

"Too bad he's dead," Dolma counters, though she soon realizes the horror in what she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"No, it's fine. Get out," Jinora mutters and goes back to look at her computer screen. "I wonder if they'll one day make a computer you can fit on your lap?"

When Dolma walks out of the room, Jinora starts sulking as she picks up a picture of her late husband. She knows Dolma doesn't know better, but words hurt. She sets the picture down and looks back at the budget of the air temple.

. . .

_The Next Day_

After a full night of packing, Yang wakes up early to collect his things. He has five bags and drags them outside, up the stairs, and over to the edge of the temple. Nearby, an air bison named Fluffy hovers in the air. Yang tosses his bags over on the saddle of the six-legged, white-furred animal and walks back to his apartment to tell his parents goodbye.

He gets to the front of his former home and sees his parents standing in the doorway, his mother's head leaning against his father's shoulder. He walks over to them with tears welling up in his eyes.

"I always knew you could bend," his father says with a hug. "I just didn't think about you not airbending. That's an error on my account, and I'm sorry."

"You had a one-in-four chance," Yang offers.

He looks over to see his mother sobbing profusely. She smiles. "I was going to save this for your birthday this year, but I think you'll need it now."

She hands him a small index card with the information on some man in Ba Sing Se. He looks at the card and turns it over to read the hand-written note on the back. "Yang's biological father."

"I heard on the radio an interview about him leaving a child somewhere for someone to take care of, but he never saw the baby again. He says it's his biggest regret. Maybe he can house you and you can give him comfort."

Yang smiles and thanks his mom for caring so much.

"I just want you to know that you can always visit us, and when you master earthbending I will arrange a bypass for Jinora's rules. You will have a home here no matter what," she smiles with more tears streaming down her face. "You've grown up so fast…I guess I'll see you around, then."

"We love you, son, and we offer you the best of luck. Please write back and let us know if you see your sister anywhere," Tashi says in an almost whisper.

"I love you guys, too, and I will!" Yang nods and hugs them both tightly.

He hops on the air bison and notices a figure at the head, though the fogginess of the early morning makes it impossible to distinguish anyone. He waves goodbye, wipes away tears, and tells the driver to go ahead.

"Right! Fluffy, yip yip!" a familiar voice says.

As the bison flies north from the Southern Air Temple, the fog lifts. Yang crawls up the saddle of the bison to see Dolma as its driver. She glances back and smiles at him.

"Hey," she says.

"Um…hey? How did they let you drive me there?"

"Well, my mom didn't exactly. I begged Uncle Meelo and he was all 'who am I to stop an adventure?' and snuck me out!"

Yang sits beside Dolma and watches the ocean below. Maybe this journey wasn't a bad idea after all. The two friends go north, into the temporary unknown, into the beginning of an extreme adventure.


	2. Chapter 2: Stiff, Part Two

_One Year Ago_

Yang watches as the land below zips behind him. Fluffy the sky bison glides through the air and travels overtop the Earth Kingdom. Farmlands, factories, and houses seem like ants moving in rapid lines. The boy looks up.

"It's been a few days," he remarks, "so how long do we have until Ba Sing Se?"

Dolma moves from the front of the bison and gets her map out. She holds it flat against the animal's fur and struggles to keep it from flying away. She reads the map and then loses her grasp on it, and she watches as the piece of paper gets thrown about in the wind.

"According to what I saw, we have about an hour away until we reach it," she says before realizing they've crossed the outer wall of the large city.

"Does that mean we'll be traveling over this for an hour?" Yang gasps.

The two gawk at its size relative to the air temple down south. Fluffy lowers altitude and glides just above rooftops. The city is composed of rings inside rings, sort of like a slinky that shrinks down to a point. The largest width between rings has tarnished houses and disputes on every street corner. People in ragged clothing walk around with precious items held against their chests.

Fluffy passes the shady segment and moves into a more suburban lifestyle of housing. It settles down in a park-like area with green grass and benches everywhere. Dolma and Yang hop off the creature and stretch their legs. As Yang pops his back, Dolma goes up to him.

"What's your father's name?" she asks.

Yang grabs the slip of paper and reads the content inscribed in hand-written calligraphy. The paper read the name "Prince Lu" in italics, though that is the only message the paper bore. He sighs and leans against Fluffy.

"What are the odds we're going to find a Prince Lu anywhere? Didn't they get rid of the monarchy back when Avatar Korra saved the world or something?" Dolma mutters.

"Let's just ask people," Yang says with a sigh. "Stick close to Fluffy. I read a story that Avatar Aang almost lost his bison near here."

The two split up a few paces and begin walking on either side of the six-legged animal. Many people walk by without much attention to the spectacle, but little kids quickly ran up to pet the animal. Dolma begins telling them how she and Fluffy were destined to be together.

Yang watches several girls walk by, some a year or two younger and others a few older. He stares intently at this one girl with a red sweatband covering her forehead. She smiles at him, a hand up, but then her friends pull her away from Yang's view.

"I think I'm going to like it here," Yang says as the girl walks away.

"How come you've never looked at me like that?" Dolma asks, her hands occupying her hips.

"What are you talking about?"

"…Never mind," she says. "Sir, have you heard a man named—"

"Prince Lu! Ba Sing Se, prepare for the royal treatment of the night! Lu, come on up the stage!" a voice says from somewhere.

Yang looks over to see a man in shades, a funny yellow hairdo, and a flashy outfit coaxing a handsome man up on stage. The stage is made of stone, probably meaning earthbenders raised the ground a level above in that area. A new man is on stage now, replacing the other, and he wears an open-collared white shirt covered by a sleek green jacket. His hair is brown and spiked in the front in several places, much like the way Yang's grows. He has different colored eyes, but the same darker skin, thicker eyebrows, and endearing look on his face. He grabs the microphone and starts singing. Yang goes up near the stage and starts asking to see if there is a Lu around, and everyone he asks points up there. Dolma joins him as they both watch the performance.

"I'm a nonbender, you know that right, but you bend me over backwards every single night~" the man sings into the machine, producing a sound that bounces all over the stone buildings of Ba Sing Se.

The crowd screams in excitement. Dolma and Yang, mouths open, watch the performance. Dolma starts cackling, falling to the ground, and recuperates a minute later. She decides to give Yang his "time" and goes over to Fluffy to make sure it's safe.

Lu finishes his song and listens as the crowd chants his name. He jumps in the crowd and allows them to carry him in a full circle around, and then back on stage. He does a backflip and grabs the microphone stand smoothly, snaps his hand into a finger-pointing position and blinks at the audience.

While everyone cheers, Yang's face grows more horrific. His father is a pop star—an Earth Kingdom pop star. He watches as roses are thrown on stage. Lu goes to pick every one of them up, now carrying more than a bouquet, and blows a kiss into the audience. Several girls, some Yang's age, faint in response.

After a few minutes, the crowd clears away and Prince Lu is talking to someone, presumably his agent, on the phone. Yang climbs up the stage and walks over to the man. Yang gets a good look at him: no real visible wrinkles. The man is only about thirty years old. Yang goes up to speak anyway.

Lu catches Yang's staring and sighs. "Sherrie, can I get you to hold on for just a second? I have a visitor on the stage—no, I know you're backed up with other celebrities, but…ugh, _come on!_ We both know I have the potential. Okay, you'll hold? Thanks, Sherrie, you're beautiful. Tell your kid I said hi." He looks Yang over and rolls his eyes. He moves his phone toward the back of his ear and angles it away, almost as if to keep Yang from hearing. "Look, boy, I didn't mean to infatuate your girl. The ladies simply cannot resist a prince," he says with a glint in his teeth. "Yes, Sherrie, I'm still here. No, I didn't mean your daughter—I wasn't talking to you!"

"No, sir, I have—" Yang begins.

"…have to charge me for public entertainment? Ha, what's up with you bender police, anyway? Sherrie, I'm not talking to the police directly. I'm talking to some teen impersonating an officer. Sherrie, stay with me, baby, I'm almost done!"

"Um, no, Mr. Prince Lu, I'm your—"

"Oh, another number one fan? Sherrie, add that to my collection!" the man laughs.

Yang slams his fists down to his side and causes two small craters to form on either side of his legs. He looks at Lu with impatience in his eyes. "I'm your son, for flameo's sake!"

Lu looks Yang up and down and his pulse stops momentarily. "Sh-Sherrie, I'm…I'm going to have to call you back," he says as his phone slips out of his hand and smashes onto the ground. "C-come with me," he whispers hoarsely.

Yang signals for Dolma and she brings Fluffy over to hoist Lu up. He seems reluctant at first, but after feeling the softness of Fluffy's fur, he gives in and gets on top of the animal. Yang hops on and tells his biological father to lead the way.

. . .

"Excuse me, miss, can you please take this animal out into the backyard with the others? Let it graze if it wants, but don't let it eat my petunias," Lu says to a farmhand standing at the gate to a massive mansion.

The building has an orange roof and beautiful, architecture that wisps out on the ends. The building has multiple floors, with the outside of each one being made of brick. Behind the house is a large farm, presumably his own, that owns many animals, some in a barn and others in gated communities. The house itself, though, is beautiful considering the suburban standard set in the other section of Ba Sing Se.

"Where are we?" Dolma asks.

"The Upper Ring. This is where the wealthy live," the roughly-thirty-year-old explains.

"Your singing career got you this?" she wonders.

"No, my royal blood did. My singing got me these roses and a fanbase."

"I don't understand," she says, "the Earth Kingdom dropped its monarchy after Prince Wu, right?"

"King Wu, you mean. He was king for a very short amount of time. Very true, though. However, as Wu's only child, I still get treated the part. I don't have any jurisdiction whatsoever in Ba Sing Se politics, let alone the Earth Kingdom, but I guess the population still likes a figurehead "royal family" around. If you can't shake the name, embrace it! Please, come in."

The trio walks up three sets of stairs, and Yang starts gasping for air by the time they arrive at the front door. Two servicewomen open the doors and another takes Lu's fancy jacket. Yang walks inside to view the living room, which has amazing internal structuring. A beautiful glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling, its crystals reflecting the light of the sun. On nearly every spot on the wall, lies a picture of some sort, each being a different person. The couches are red velvet with gold trimming. The walls are a shade of pure white, with columns protruding from the ceiling at certain intervals, each lined with little designs within the stonework.

"My father had the establishment built in 180 AG," Lu explains. "I've lived in it since birth. You were conceived on—"

"You can stop right there," Yang says with a red face.

"Right, my apologies."

"So wait, Yang has royal blood then, correct?" Dolma says, puzzled.

"Yep, but only if he actually is my son. I guess I shouldn't have jumped the gun. It's just been my biggest regret in life," he explains. "I guess the blood isn't royal anymore, but it's at least historical."

Yang walks away from the two people as they sit on a couch and begin talking. They each steal glances at him, as if to get his input or assurance, though he doesn't look up from staring at a small picture frame set up on a coffee table. He picks it up to look at the picture. It shows two young teenagers in love, both about his age. The man had spiky hair in the front, just like Yang, and brown eyes. The woman had dirty blonde hair down to her shoulders, though it would have been even longer if she had straightened it. She also had forest green eyes, the same eyes Yang knows he has. He cups a hand to his mouth.

"That's my first and last love. Now come sit, Yang, and let's talk about this."

Yang walks over and sits on a cushion of the red velvet couch beside Dolma and the complete opposite position of Lu, who sits in a red recliner. They look each other deep in the eyes.

"Hey, Ms. Lin? Could we get some nice hot tea? Yours is the best of the whole Earth Kingdom," Lu says softly.

"Oh, Lu, you always know how to make a girl feel like she's twenty," a gravelly voice replies from another room. "I'm already on it."

As they wait for their hot tea, Lu leans forward and studies Yang's features and he gives a sharp nod when noticing something familiar. He then looks back into Yang's eyes and opens his mouth to speak.

"Tell me about yourself," he says.

"Okay, well I was taken in by Air Nomads almost immediately after I was born. They found me just sitting on the rocks or something. Being raised completely wrong as an airbender, I found myself being a nonbender. However, as all nomads are pretty much benders, I was enrolled in school anyway. I learned I was an earthbender not even a week ago when I settled a fight that was getting ugly."

"An earthbender? Man, Oma would be the proudest. She never cared about the kid being a boy or girl; she just wanted him or her to bend. She could metalbend, too. Can you?"

"To be honest, I just found out everything the other day."

"At fifteen, then? Must've been those Nomads. Creepy people, I've heard," he says knowingly.

Dolma gives him an ugly face of disapproval.

"But kind! Very, very kind!"

Yang clears his throat and destroys the tension between them. He looks at the celebrity figure standing before him, the father he never even knew, and the one he never really wanted. He sighs and admits to himself that life is not the way it used to be, and it will never return to normal. He speaks up. "What about my mother? Can you tell me anything about her? Where is she?"

Lu seems different now. In reliving the past, some of his emotions and nostalgia returns to his mind. "She was such a beautiful, independent girl. I bugged the crap out of her until she let me take her out to the movers. We became so fond of each other that we made a few…mistakes," Lu stops abruptly, catching himself before causing a scene, and continues. "We would have loved you, Yang. I still do right now. There were…there were complications with your birth, and your mother didn't make it. As a kid, a single parent of a kid, and one who recently just lost the love of his life, I was in no position to raise a child—especially not alone."

"So you left me in the middle of town? Was I some sort of spectacle?" Yang grits his teeth.

"What would people have thought if the somewhat prince, now alone at only sixteen, had a child to take care of—his, no less? My reputation would have been soiled and we would both have lost everything my father worked for," Lu defends himself, though slowly realizes his selfish wording. "I didn't mean to—"

Yang runs out of the house and into the backyard to find Fluffy. He slams through the back door and runs through the property to find his transportation. Dolma and Lu watch him run.

"I'll get him," she starts, but Lu grabs her shoulder and shakes his head.

"I need to correct my mistakes. I've hidden them away for too long."

. . .

Yang goes over to the barn with tears streaming down his cheeks. He gets his hand and saws it through his thick, brown hair. He leans against one of the stalls of the barn and tries to calm down through muttering out petty insults and empty threats. Suddenly, a big trunk rests on his shoulder and he jumps up in fright, screaming a little and landing his toes.

On the other side of the stall door, an animal with antlers, a tan body, and a long, furry trunk stares at him kindly. The two catch each other's eyes and yang soon begins to pet the animal. Its trunk ruffles his hair and his mood perks up from before.

"His name is Choju."

Yang glances around to see his biological father leaning against the side of the door. He smiles proudly at his child, almost as if he raised the boy himself. He blinked and stood up straight.

"What is he? He's really cool!"

"That, my boy, is an elkephant—only a few years old. This one in particular was impossible to tame, but he seems to have taken a liking to you real quick," he smiles.

Lu opens the stall door, leads it outside, and gestures Yang to get on its back. He helps Yang up and the bender smiles as the elkephant blows air at him through its trunk.

"I'll tell you what—do you want to use him for transportation? You can have him; he doesn't listen to anyone, and I have several others in storage for the Bending Parade."

"Bending parade?" Yang asks.

"Once a year type of thing, but it happened about a week ago," Lu explains.

"Oh."

"So," Lu begins a new topic, "how good of a bender are you?"

"I brought up a rock," Yang says. "I'd rather be a nonbender, though. Bending is new to me and I'm not used to carrying this ability. I feel like people expect something of me."

"So you're here to master earthbending, then, according to your parents' suggestion?"

"That's the plan," Yang nods.

"Do you want to live with me until you do? You, Dolma, and spider-bison can stay as long as you want."

Yang sees a trace of fatherhood in his demeanor. He feels a ping of guilt for running out, but he then remembers the stories of being ditched in town as a newborn baby.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Yang finally sighs.

"I didn't mean to upset you before. I was about your age when you were born! I was going through an identity crisis, too. I know how you feel," he says.

Yang feels a surge of anger go up his spine. "You don't know anything about me, and you didn't bother finding out until I came _looking for you_ fifteen years later! _Now_ you want to be hospitable? Last week, I was the worst kid, an adopted "stiff" misfit in class, and I'd rather it be that way! Today I am standing before my selfish, self-centered biological father, and I'm an earthbender. So no, I'll live on the streets before I take shelter under your fake housing!"

Lu gets a brand new phone from his pocket and begins dialing different numbers on it. His expression turns to nervousness and he frantically moves his hands about the device.

"Even in all this," Yang shouts, "you get your phone out to call your agent?"

Yang feels tiny bits of energy in the phone, and he moves the pulsations to his left fingertips. He then balls up his hand and watches in amazement as the phone crunches into a ball of metal. He loses control, resulting in the phone falling to the ground. Both Yang and Lu look at each other for a moment, neither speaking.

Finally, Lu breaks the silence. "Oh, Oma, how amazed you would be."

Yang jumps off Choju and runs back into the house in frustration. He catches sight of Dolma watching television and gets her attention.

"We're leaving," he demands.

Dolma shakes her head. "No, you have to master your bending. We need decent shelter, and Lu has offered more than enough. You're going to let daddy troubles get in the way of your future? I'm staying, and so are you," she counters.

"Did your mom even let you come, or did you sneak off like you always do?" Yang yells.

Dolma gets up from the couch and walks to the front door. "You may use your anger to demonstrate your bending to bullies, but you aren't going to affect me. I'll be back when you calm yourself down."

She walks out of the house, slams the door, and makes her way to find something to do. Yang stands there, in the house of his actual father, alone. He sits on the couch with a hand placed on his forehead and an elbow against his knee. He hears Lu come in talking to someone on the phone, but he doesn't bother looking up.

"Oh, good, you're still here," he says. "Earthbending Master Bolin is on the phone—should I cancel your appointment tomorrow morning, or are you going to stay?"

Yang stares at the TV blankly. "I'll be there," he mutters.

. . .

_The Next Morning_

Early that morning, Choju guides both Lu and Yang to the earthbending school. Dolma came home late the night before, but she decided she would explore more of Ba Sing Se while Yang goes to practice his bending. The elkephant trots surprisingly faster than expecting, outpacing an ostrich horse in an unofficial race. He trots them through shops and gatherings and banquets, all of which were awkward to interrupt. Finally, however, they come to a temple of green roofing. The sign on the front says "Bolin's Bending" in large, yellow letters. Lu guides Yang inside the building and they begin to search around.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry about earlier," Yang admits. "I'll need some time before I can forgive everything, but thank you for giving me the closure I needed."

"No, thank you. I'll do whatever it takes to earn your trust," Lu says, looking in his son's eyes. "I haven't been the best father by any means, and maybe one day I can change that."

"You could start by not singing," Yang smiles, causing Lu to laugh.

"Yeah…Bolin, are you there?" he replies quickly with a grin still plastered on his face.

. . .

Dolma explores the shops along the upper two rings of Ba Sing Se. She finds a beautiful green hat and purchases it with her savings. Her mother never let her buy anything; Air Nomads live off of almost nothing. Dolma also buys a blue shirt of some name brand a tight pair of jeans. Her airbending robes set off a red flag of boringness and a lack of adventure. For more formal meetings she may go to, she also buys a green dress. Furthermore, she goes over and purchases a pink backpack to keep belongings in. At this point, Dolma is now broke. She sighs.

The airbender walks down the sidewalk, waving and smiling, and finds a poster hanging on a telephone pole. In case she needs to find a lost pet, she goes over to read the notice.

"Missing Airbender. Call if found," she reads, slowly realizing her dilemma. Below the text is a picture of her from last year and her mother's phone number. She cringes at her mother's choice in representing her. "Pff, she's going to have to try harder if she wants me to come on," Dolma says, annoyed, and snatches the flyer from the pole.

Dolma then stuffs the paper in her bag and desperately runs back to her salvation in Prince Lu's house.

. . .

"You have to use neutral jing, Yang. You know what that is?" the old man teases.

Bolin had appeared soon after Lu called for him, and the master automatically sensed Yang's potential just in his mere presence. He stated that Yang already has the power inside of him, but he's blocking that power's accessibility through his feebleness.

"I'm not sure what jing is, actually," Yang chuckles in a sigh.

"Jing helps determine how you direct your energy. Positive jing is all about offense, like firebending. You focus on your attacking rather than your backup plan. Negative jing is about retreating and avoiding your opponents—airbenders do that best. There's a third jing, though: neutral jing. You wait and listen for your opponent to strike, and you act within a split second," he pauses as a flying rock knocks Yang back. "Or you get hit. Let's practice."

Bolin is basically a senior citizen. His hair is gray and receding on top, and his face has withered from old age and experiences. However, he is more intimidating than Kaze the bully could every dream of being. The man is also hunched over, which Yang finds somewhat pitiful and somewhat funny. He wears a green robe with metal shoulder pads.

"I went on a date with the Avatar once," he explains as he gets in the formation of battle. He arrives at one side of a dirt area. "I ditched her, though, once I met my wife, Opal."

"Really?" Yang's father says from the sidelines. "Mako told me she used you to date him."

Bolin's face goes red. "Mako's just jealous that we both struck out with her! Anyway, I was a movie star back in my prime. TukNuk, they called me."

"I think it was Nuktuk, Linny," Lu provokes.

Bolin flicks his fingers at Lu and causes a pebble to smack the man between the eyes. He looks over to Yang. "Enough side talk. Let's first start with telling you that mastering earthbending can't be done in a year, or two years; in fact, it took me a decade to get it down perfect. It'll probably take you double that, but, you know, not every ol' kid's as good as I was."

Yang feels the attack coming from the ground. Bolin fists the air and causes a rock to erupt from the ground, and he kicks it straight at Yang. Feeble, the boy tries to dodge and gets smacked to the ground.

"You have to dodge the attack, Yang. I can't teach a sissy!"

Yang gets up and gets smacked by the same attack. He falls back down.

"Don't get stiff on me," Bolin chuckles.

"What did you just say?"

"Don't get stiff."

Bolin flicks another rock at Yang and watches the boy work. Yang listens to the rock hurtle towards him, and he falls to the ground to dive under the rock. As Yang gets up from the attack, Bolin fires another, and Yang side-dodges this time.

"You're doing better, but keep going!"

Lu looks over at the temple doors and sees Dolma walk in. He jumps up and runs to her, and he then guides her back to his seat so they can watch the show at hand.

Yang loses his feebleness. He then imitates Bolin and brings a rock up from the earth. He then punches the rock and kicks at an incoming one from the master. He smashes it into a million pieces as Bolin does the same to his own obstacle.

"Very…very good. It usually takes two weeks to get the offense going. Let's get real, then!"

Bolin yanks two large boulders out of the ground and throws them, and Yang dodges them both and dives into the sandy bottom. In a desperate attempt, he bends the sand at Bolin, causing temporary blindness, and Yang metalbends his shoulder padding to cut off access to moving his arms. He lifts Bolin up and dangles him in the air.

Bolin, screaming from the tears of the sand, is flabbergasted by the child's abilities. He blinks several times in a second and soon begins to get his vision back.

"Go Yang!" Dolma squeals.

Yang loses focus of beating the master and stares straight at Dolma with a smile on his face. Bolin flicks his fingers and causes a pebble to smack right between Yang's eyes, making him fall to the ground and lose his grip on his opponent.

Dolma covers her mouth and apologizes out loud while Bolin walks over. He stands above Yang with a smile on his face.

"Metalbending? Sandbending? Not many people think about using the sand, and those that can bend metal can't do it enough to overpower me. You did exceptionally well, though I still win because I planned the whole thing all along," Bolin says with sweat on his forehead. "Now..could you fix my shoulder padding?"

Yang reshapes the metal and gets up from the ground.

"I was wrong," his teacher says. "I think that in a few years, you'll be ready to take your final exam. However, don't let the attention of others get in the way of your focus!"

. . .

_Present Day_

_After a whole year of training with Sifu Bolin, Yang became ready to take his final exam. He and Prince Lu not only produced a healthy relationship, but a strong friendship as well. Yang wrote to his airbender parents every week, keeping in touch and not mentioning Dolma at all. Dolma became quite the socialite and made friends with every teen she met, though she kept a low profile and never gave out her name. Her mother is only now starting to worry, making radio announcements and the headlines of the news. Outside of bending, Yang became best friends with Choju the elkephant as well._

"Are you ready to face me for one final match? Earthbending only; you won't metalbend and I won't lavabend your little butt out of here," Bolin growls. "I've never had a student do so well in my class…maybe I'm becoming a softy. Ah, I should just put a sock in it." Bolin then gets a sock from his pocket and puts it in his mouth. "Get it?" his muffled voice says.

Yang, disturbed, removes the sock from his instructor's mouth. "Let's do this, Sifu Bolin."

Bolin waits for Yang to make the first move. The boy, sixteen now, starts running and waves his right hand in the air. He creates a side ramp that peeks out of the ground and curves inward. Yang runs along the rocky trail and thrusts his arms up in the air to create a giant pillar of rock that he jumps on. Bolin smashes the pillar with a shoulder slam and sends Yang flying downward, and the boy lands hard on his feet.

"Getting tired?" Bolin asks aloud.

"You wish, old man," Yang laughs.

Yang jumps across one of the large rocks left over from the destruction of his pillar and lands on the ground. He looks to see Bolin summoning huge rocks and tossing them over to Yang's area.

"I am Rock Lord!" he cries.

Yang quickly raises four triangles of rock to make a pyramid of protection around him. When the bending ceases, he creates a small burrow underground for the next attack. Bolin kicks a rock that shaves the top layer off the pyramid and he runs over to inspect it. Yang pops out with a rock that smacks Bolin back a few feet. The man shakes off the blow and brings his fist up to loosen the ground momentarily. He then brings two boulders off the ground and prepares to smash them together, with Yang being in the middle. Yang stomps his foot on the ground and turns it to angle Bolin's position, and the trail of earth breaks as power is sent to Bolin. When the attack lands, Yang is already in the air. Bolin dodges quickly and hits Yang with a boulder, knocking him hard to the ground. His left arm is grazed.

The boy gets up and gets closer to Bolin's firing range. He kicks a rock at the man to distract him and brings up a punch to knock him back. Bolin responds with a quick thrust of a block of solid earth, knocking Yang back a couple feet. He does, however, break the rock upon contact. He summons another column of earth up to block two more attacks, and he then stomps to lift the rock up a little. Yang thrusts his body against the rock's motion and knocks it forward, though Bolin stomps a sharp barrier to break it.

Bolin jumps up and knocks Yang back with a stone to the chest, and he then makes an upward motion to move a huge boulder, and then his hands carry the power of it through his bending. He keeps the boulder above his head and watches as Yang struggles to get up. The master tosses the boulder, and Yang sweeps the ground with his feet to trip Bolin and lose his stability. Yang then catches the boulder and breaks it into two slabs, either slab falling to its respective side of him. While Bolin regains his footing, Yang flicks his fingers and causes a pebble to smack between the master's eyes. He falls back and lands hard on the ground.

Yang looks at him and smiles as his master gets up from the fall. "I meant to do that," he says with a sigh. "I'm not as good as I used to be, I guess."

Dolma and Lu cheer from the sidelines and then Lu rubs his five o'clock shadow. He asks Dolma if he should keep it, if it makes him even better looking, and she responds with a finger-down-the-throat gesture.

"Well," Bolin sighs, "you're definitely an earthbending master. Heck, you learned that faster than Avatar Korra. It's almost scary how good you are at earthbending. You may have a lot to learn about your personal bending skills, but you are at your max abilities if you've beaten me, obviously."

Yang thanks Sifu Bolin and momentarily goes over to his father.

"What are we going to do now?" he asks.

"We should go to the bending festival tomorrow!" Dolma pleads, and Lu nods.

"I have a gig there, so we'll go!"

The two kids groan as they walk out of the building, and Yang waves at Bolin as he exits.

"Come see me anytime for a roughing-up!" he tells the man.

"You got lucky, kid. It's called acting," the old man smiles.

Once Yang is gone, Bolin sits on a rock and ponders the battle they had.

"He really is as powerful as Korra was back in the old days…but he can only earthbend, and he's already sixteen. But still," he sighs, and he pinches the skin on his nose and calls it a day. "Hey, Opal, do you still have my prescription foot cream?"He hears her quiet answer and frowns. "Oh, okay, I didn't tell you to throw it away ten years ago, but that's fine if you did."

"Are you blaming me?" an old feminine voice emits from a room other than the battle area.

"No, honey!" he squeals. He then lowers his voice to a whisper. "That kid hurt my feet."


	3. Chapter 3: The Bending Festival

"You know, Republic City used to be in peril almost every day when I was a kid. Avatar Korra, as old as she was, never failed to pull through," Prince Lu says as a visit to the past.

The three are riding on Choju, who is surprisingly resistant despite his scrawny-looking legs, toward the direction of the Bending Festival. Yang has completely mastered earthbending now, though Dolma feels some shame in not mastering her element quite yet.

"What do you mean 'used to be' in trouble? Is it crime-free?" Yang asks.

"Actually, it's now expanding through the Spirit World portals made by Korra and Kuvira about forty-five years ago. I heard the Spirit World's being slowly claimed up by plantation owners, but it's only a rumor going around," Lu explains.

"Spirits actually exist?" Yang, bewildered, wonders out loud.

Dolma face palms. "No wonder you can't airbend. Lu, I've got this one. When Avatar Korra opened the spirit portals during Harmonic Convergence who-knows-how-long ago, the spirits came into our world more freely. Republic City has these vines that have infiltrated the town and wrapped around buildings. The newest portal, though, is an easier access to the spirit world for humans since not many live on the poles. That's what my mom told me, at least."

_I wonder what my mom's doing right now? _Dolma thinks sadly.

"Korra wanted to keep the Spirit World pure of human interference, but her death was a gateway to its eventual continuation. The leader of Republic City better have a good explanation for taking over the spirits' homes," Lu says.

"Avatar Korra sounds important," Yang acknowledges the obvious again.

"Well yes, the _A__avatar_ is important. She's the last one, though," Dolma sighs.

The trio ride up and down on the elkephant until Lu gives it a sharp kick in the side. He tells the others to hold on as Choju's eyes bulge out. It starts trotting toward the festival, causing Dolma to fly off and force herself to make an airbending scooter to keep up. Yang watches in awe as she rides on a ball of pre-made wind.

"You'll have to go to Republic City if you want to master metalbending," Lu says. "We'll talk about it more later."

Around them, animals rush desperate citizens over to the meeting place. Children run and tag each other while benders practice their attacks on one another. Yang gets splashed in the face by one kid and has his hair stick to his forehead. He groans as Dolma giggles at the sight.

"Republic City also has pro-bending tournaments. For an earthbender like you, that's perfect," Lu sighs.

Lu dismounts Choju and ties his reins to a thick tree. He tells it to stay and be good, so the animal lies down against the tree and drifts to sleep. Yang, unable to see anything, raises a block of stone from their feet to act as a rising platform. Prince Lu sees the stage and jumps off the platform, telling the others that he has to get to the backstage area soon.

Dolma looks around at the dancing and bending and smiles. She enjoys the scenery around her until she spots another flyer on a pole. She tells Yang she has to go to the bathroom, and she runs to the pole the rip the flyer off. No evidence can be left. Dolma wears the blue shirt and tight jeans in order to fit in, though the grip of the material on her legs is unpleasant. She tears the paper up and sticks it in the back pocket of her skin-tight jeans, and she cringes at the lack of relaxation.

. . .

"Jinora, don't you think you're over-reacting?"

The hard-working woman, past the "middle-aged" mark, looks up with an exhausted, albeit worried, expression on her face. "Dolma could be anywhere, Meelo. You don't understand. She needs to finish her training before she can do something like this!"

"If you were my mom, I would've left on an adventure myself," Meelo chuckles. "I didn't need no woman watching out for me, and neither does Dolma. She's strong, Jinora."

The two of them converse in the sister's office. Their shipment of noodles came in yesterday, and now Jinora has a ton of paperwork to fill out due to their lack of expendable money.

"She does need her mother! She went with that earthbender boy, but he learned who he was years after he should've. If she got hurt, he wouldn't be strong enough to help! We don't even know that boy," Jinora sighs.

Meelo's ruffled hair is smoothed out by his hand. His airbending tattoo is radiant as ever, though his goofy demeanor seems to outshine it. The man has his fair share of wrinkles, but nothing like his two sisters.

"Yes, Jinora, she went with Yang, but that boy isn't helpless. I got a letter from him just last week saying he was about to take his mastery exam. _Already_."

Jinora's face perks with interest. "Already?" she asks, but she soon shakes off the curiosity and focuses on her daughter. "Look, Meelo, I don't have time to feel like a good mom by letting Dolma leave. She's out there and there's no telling what will happen!"

"You waited a whole year before finally deciding to look for her? I won't call you a 'good mom' by any means," Meelo says, but he sees his sister's tears and tries to make up for it. "I mean, you at least gave her time to come back, I suppose."

"When I'm upset, I submerge myself in my work. I didn't realize she was missing until she didn't come back for her allowance a week later. She never bothered to see me before, anyways. We've never been close, so I just thought she was avoiding me. I've put out flyers and everything, but it's not working. I don't understand why she'd do this," Jinora whines.

Meelo looks at his sister and narrows his eyes. "You know what I think? I think you're afraid to leave the temple after Kai's death."

Jinora hangs her head down between her two elbows and holds the back of her head. The woman was very beautiful before her husband's departure, but everything seemed to fall apart for her after. She became bitter—maybe even _afraid_ of everyone.

"Didn't you do dangerous things when you were a kid?" And didn't we search for Korra on our own in the swamp? As kids? You were fourteen back then. Dolma's just shy of adulthood."

"That was different, Meelo, and you know it. We were on missions. The whole Earth Kingdom was at risk back then. Dolma ran out as an act of rebellion, not on a mission to save the Avatar! Now, Meelo, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be interviewed about my daughter's disappearance."

Meelo hops in front of the exit just as Jinora's about to leave. He's slightly taller than her, though not as tall as his father once was. However, his moments of maturity almost seem to meet his father's. Jinora sees the seriousness in his eyes and stops her attempt to leave.

"If you really cared, Jinora, you'd go to search for her yourself."

Jinora studies his face, his encouraging smile, and thinks for a moment. She brushes her hand through her plain hairstyle and smiles back at him. "I'll go pack my bags and saddle Pepper up, then." She goes to leave and stops at the doorway. "It'll be nice riding it again."

"Safe travels! I'll take over until you come back," Meelo says with a hint of excitement. "Also, if you find Ikki, let me know."

"She just has to be the one with nature," Jinora jests.

"She'd rather be in animal activist groups. She spoils those flying bison," Meelo says.

Jinora almost leaves again, but grips the doorway and overstays. "Thank you, Meelo, for finally being mature. I didn't think you'd every grow up…you were a party animal in your forties!"

Meelo laughs. "I guess the fifties just hit hard. After all, I'm at the age of dad's 'Vacation Tenzin' mode."

Jinora snags the picture of her, Kai, and Dolma and holds it against her chest. She smiles one last time before leaving to get her bags.

"Love you, bro!" she yells.

"Yeah, yeah, Meelo doesn't do emotions!" He pauses. "But I love you, too. Now go on before I get the acolytes to kick you out!"

Jinora laughs in the distance and exits to get some of her luggage. Meelo watches her go on for a while until there is utter darkness. He runs inside the room, locks the door, and gets a cell phone out.

"Hello, Tashi? Yeah, I didn't think she'd _ever _leave. The storage key is in the second flower pot along the wall of the building. Go in the storage house and grab as many bags of chips and cans of soda as you can. I'll order the pizza. Tell Yeche to call that DJ back. Then call your friends and kids and neighbors and tell them this: it's time to par-tay—_Meelo Style!"_

. . .

The fire dancers are up first. Yang watches in awe as girls do flexible tricks and firebend into the air. Rings of fire are created and men and women both jump through and kick their firebending into the air through blackflips. In the dark night, it's very impressive. Lu hears his name being called somewhere in the distance and leaves Yang and Dolma to their own privacy. The two, still on their elkephant friend, look around at the amazing dancers.

Yang dismounts Choju and ties him to one of the trees designated for transportation. Several Satomobiles were used to get here, though some of the lowest ring still uses animals. For some reason, so does Prince Lu. Choju whines and puts a trunk to Yang's face in fright. The fire and dancing has been worrying his mind, and the creature seems on his toes.

"It's going to be okay, Choju. It's just a festival. You stay here and we'll go have some fun," Yang comforts it.

Yang turns around by Dolma to see that same girl with the headband dancing among the nonbenders in the back. He had seen her his first day in Ba Sing Se, which seems like much more than a year ago. He feels his heart skip a beat when seeing her dance beautifully. He decides to make his way over to the front of the crowd and pushes in between people as his route to get there. Dolma, worried about the posters around her, fails to notice Yang's disappearance.

Yang sees his dad go through the back curtain as the fire dancers come out. He tells the guard that's his father, and because their resemblance is uncanny, he's easily allowed to get back there. Instead of cheering his father on backstage, though, Yang looks through all the dancers to find the one girl. After three minutes of frantically looking over the sea of fire, he finally sees the girl.

She has vivid red hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail and a face oriented with freckles along the nose and cheeks. Her eyes are a deep hazel; there are small little speckles of benevolent green surrounded by a serious, sophisticated brown. She wears a red outfit with golden trim on the outline.

Yang, red in the face, greets her. The girl, about his height, admittedly a centimeter or two taller, stares down his lanky, muscle-less body. She smiles and grabs his hand. She drags him off the stage and back into the audience to dance. As Yang's father gets up to sing, she smiles and starts pumping her fists in the air.

"Hi, I'm Yang," he says in a hoarse voice.

"Rumi," she smiles. "I remember you from last year."

"Yeah, I remember you, too," he says, his hand timidly holding his arm.

She grabs him and makes him dance with her. The two fit right in with the crowd and cheer for Prince Lu.

"You bent the earth, you bent the sky, and now you've bent my heart and made me die~" Lu sings.

As Dolma watches Prince Lu, she laughs at his corny lyrics and looks over to Yang to converse about them. When she sees he disappears, she goes over to Choju and asks him if he's seen her friend.

"Hooh?" the elkephant replies in confusion, though the answer makes no sense.

She scans the crowd and sees his spiky hair bouncing up and down in the front row. She immediately makes her way through the crowd to reach him. That stupid boy's making a fool of himself, but she finds it kind of funny that he's dancing to his father's terrible song.

Lu bows once finishing and allows the applause to occur. He thanks everyone and leaves. Just as Dolma is about to catch up to Yang, Rumi grabs him by the arm and drags him over to a wooden table off in the sidelines. Dolma reaches his spot, scratches her neck, and frowns.

"I could've sworn he was here," she mutters.

Yang sprints as a result of Rumi's quick dragging. The two reach the table and a big, burly earthbender sits behind it. The man was bulging with muscles on every possible location of his body, possibly even his humongous eyebrows. His eyes seemed to strain from the pressure of his muscular lids. He was a monster.

Rumi looks at his face. "You look like an earthbender," she says.

"Yep, a master, in fact," Yang brags, slowly reddening again from appearing a show-off.

"We'll see about that! I'm signing you up for the bending battles that are about to happen!"

"The what?" Yang asks, confused.

"The bending battles! At the festivals, we always have pro-benders battle it out in honor of Avatar Korra's pro-bending team! The Fire Ferrets were awesome back in the day," the girl blushes.

"Do you bend anything? Fire?"

Rumi feels of her headband and shakes her head. "Nope, I'm a nonbender, but I've always loved bending fire."

She gets the pen and writes Yang's name in one of the last blank spaces on the paper. The man raises an eyebrow, laughs a little, and tells them to move on. Yang gulps as a huge earthbender signs up behind him.

On stage, a strange man in a black suit crawls up shyly to the microphone. He has no defining facial features; perhaps his mustache is the most important feature his face has to offer. Nevertheless, the shady man gets the crowd's attention.

"Attention Ba Sing Se," he says aloud, "the Republic _Nation _is now establishing its existence among the four elemental nations you're all aware. Due to its enormous land ownership, we now have a new nation, one of no prominent bending element, on our planet!" He waits for applause, but nothing happens. "If you would like to rent land and work in the newly-built factories of the Spirit World, President Maiko is offering hundreds of acres for a limited amount of time. The Spirit World offers a fresh start for humanity; it's a pollution—free environment with your energy source growing all around you! Think of it as an Industrial Revolution of sorts! Please meet me at one of the tables in the back if you're interested. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your show!"

The man walks off and many people decide to go looking for a second chance at life through that back table. Dolma gets trampled by adults that run back, and she is left with a few old men, some rich people, and kids that have no idea what's going on. Dolma looks to see Yang with that headband girl at the table, and she fumes with a jealous rage. Dolma runs to the table to find out what's going on.

Slowly but surely, the party starts back up. People flood back into the audience area and watch as the stage is extended and a new announcer comes in—Lu. The man, devilishly handsome, points a finger to the crowd and brings a roar of applause. He taps the microphone and shows off his glittering teeth. Yang's face grows red at seeing his father so into the present.

"Hello, everybody! Your popularity prince is here to tell you who the first competitors are in our bending battles! First up, we have firebender Rohan and Stoney the earthbending bodybuilder!"

The crowd cheers as a tall, masculine man comes out on the left side of the field. He wears a skin-tight outfit that is perfect for better agility. On the other side, a man even taller and more masculine, so much as to make the other guy seem scrawny, walks out and causes the earth to quake with every step. As Lu announces for them to start and scurries off stage to protect his pretty face, Stoney kicks a stone up and bashes Rohan in the face with it. The firebender, already bleeding, uses a swift kick to create a flame that singes the mustache off the other man. The crowd laughs.

As the bending battle goes on, Rumi leads Yang up to the front of the audience, closer to the steps. She brings him to the best view of the action. Yang watches as the firebender moves more aggressively than the other man, who always seems to wait for an action to be made. He studies the firebender's movements; The firebender swiftly punches in the air and causes a flamethrower-esque fire that knocks Stoney back and off the playing field. The firebender is determined the winner by a long run, and Yang jumps up and down in eagerness.

"This is so cool! I wonder who I'll be battling," Yang says to Rumi.

"Probably a huge guy that'll bruise your face for a month, but I'm sure you'll do great!"

Yang freezes. "Why did you sign me up, then?!"

Rumi laughs. "Because you're cool and I want to live through you. Win the battle for me," she says.

Prince Lu gets back on stage with a paper of the next contestants. As he opens it, Dolma walks up to Yang and puts a hand on his shoulder. Lu's face grows excited as he sees the first name.

"First up is my own song, master earthbender and heartbender with the ladies, it's Yang!"

Yang's face turns redder than the firebender's flames when his father said that in front of the entirety of Ba Sing Se. He gulps and shakily gets on stage toward the left side. He looks around to see Rumi and Dolma gone.

Prince Lu opens the paper further and coughs as a result. "In the next corner, we have the airbender-in-training under the nickname of "The Tornado?"

On the other side, a small girl wearing a white face mask steps up and holds herself in a strong, defensive pose. Lu says to begin as he runs off stage.

Yang looks at the girl with a weird look on his face. She kicks a slash of air his way, and he raises up a rock wall to break the blast. He then kicks the wall and almost hits the airbender, though she jumps over it and starts waving her hands in a circular motion. Yang gets picked up in a tornado and blown around, causing the audience to laugh. He earthbends a rock that hits her in the chest and knocks her down. He falls on his feet and uses the earth around her to put her in a prison of sorts, with only her head sticking out. Once it is determined that Yang wins, he drops the rock wall.

The masked bender airbends him to the edge of the stage as the crowd goes "ooo!" Yang gets up and bends a stone that knocks into the mask, though the villain remains unknown. She creates a ball of air and rides on it as she dodges the rocks that Yang protrudes from the ground. She airbends him up in the air and allows him to fall down, and he lands on one hand, his body then doing a three hundred and sixty degree spin around his hand. The result is a slash of fire that singes the mask off of the masked bender's face. The crowd gasps as Yang sees the firebending happen. He looks to see the masked airbender: it's Dolma.

She looks at him confusedly. "Did you just _firebend_?"

He looks at her the same way. "Did you just come to attack me?"

The crowd goes silent as they talk. Rumi, who had been watching from backstage, runs up and defends them. "Sorry folks," she says, "but I couldn't stand the cheating and had to interfere with some bending! I made it look like Yang's so I wouldn't get caught, but it seems I've raised some questions!"

The audience groans as security pulls Yang, Dolma, and Rumi all off the stage and away from the audience. One man tells them to stay away from the bending battles, and the other replies a sharp, although not very helpful, "yeah!" The three stand in silence for a moment.

"That obviously wasn't your bending, girl," Dolma says.

"No, it wasn't," Rumi admits.

"Why did you attack me?" Yang yells, and he seems completely oblivious to his ability.

"I was just having some fun. _You _seemed to be having some fun," the airbender darts. "You're lucky you didn't destroy my shirt with your bending! I'm not wearing those airbender robes, they're tacky!"

"So you're the airbender everyone's been looking for?" Rumi asks.

"Who are you, anyway? You think you can just take my friend and sign him up for danger?"

Rumi is taken back by the comment. "The name's Rumi, and your little _boyfriend_ ran over to meet me, not the other way around. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were overprotective of him."

"_Boyfriend?_ Dolma and I are just friends!" Yang interjects.

"Yeah, friends!"

Yang shakes his head as if to shake away the conversation. "This isn't the point! The point is that I just bent fire and I don't understand why!"

"I thought maybe you did some special trick?" Dolma suggested.

"No, I didn't do anything," he panics.

"Well you can't be both. Are you an earthbender or a firebender?" Rumi asks.

"_I don't know!_ Last year I thought I was a nonbender, and her I am now raking in the bending. It's like life is just saying 'Hey, Yang, why don't you take all this bending I have!'"

Rumi and Dolma glance at each other nervously. Dolma speaks up. "Do it again," she says.

"What?" Yang gasps.

"Firebend again."

Yang closes his eyes, huffs, and slaps his hands together in a meditative stance. He then encircles them in a fancy pattern and punches the air, producing a blast of fire. All three of them hop back a step at the sight of the fire.

"Now earthbend," Rumi instructs.

Yang earthbends a pebble that smacks Dolma between the eyes, much like Bolin had taught him earlier. She lashes out at him as he caves in and laughs at the prank. They both end up laughing, though, and Rumi does as well to relieve the tension.

Yang stops. "I don't understand," he says. "Aren't we supposed to bend only one element apiece? Or is this an earthbending/metalbending type of thing? Is fire in that list, too?"

Dolma shakes her head. "No, Yang, it's not."

"I think I know why you can do both," a familiar voice says from behind.

Lu walks up and brushes his sleek, spiky hair back into place from the singing. His face is very serious this time, though. His flawless face is tight with sincerity. He goes over to Yang and puts a shoulder on him.

"Yang, I think we both know why you could master earthbending so fast."

"I caught on fast, that's all," Yang insists.

"Even Bolin noted your power, and you trained far less than most Avatars did."

"What are you trying to say, Dad?"

Lu wipes his forehead and looks out into the sky. "Come sit," he tells Yang, indirectly asking him to make stone seats.

Yang raises his hands up carelessly and brings four cinderblock-sized blocks of earth up from the ground. Yang sits down on the closest block and realizes the darkness setting in. With sight beginning to get impossible, Yang opens his palm and summons a small flame that is just enough to light everyone's close faces.

"Have you been in the air temple all your life?" he asks.

"Ever since my step-parents took me in," his son replies.

Lu sits on the stone with a puzzled look on his face. "The White Lotus searched for the next Avatar all throughout the Earth Kingdom, and even in Republic City—but they quit eight years ago. I'm pretty sure you're one of, if not the only, earthbenders that weren't in the Earth Kingdom at the time—at your age, at least."

Yang's face drains of color. "Dad, there hasn't been an Avatar in sixteen years. Korra ended the cycle, remember? My parents told me stories about how Vaatu destroyed it!"

"Did he, Yang? Did he? You were born right when Korra died, and you were moved out of your nation when you were an infant. Adoption isn't a common thing at all, especially about two decades ago. Think about it. Once Avatar Kyoshi passed, Roku became the new Avatar. After Roku came Aang, an airbender. Then came Korra, a waterbender. Now, you're smart, which bender is next in the cycle? Earth, Fire, Air, Water…?"

"Earth," Yang mutters.

"Right. And who was the only earthbender not in the Earth Kingdom that was born when Korra died?"

"Me."

"So what do you think that means?"

"Look, Yang, it's completely possible," Dolma says.

"It seems almost obvious now," Rumi confirms.

"You guys don't understand," Yang yells, "I'm not the Avatar. I have been a nonbender for _fifteen_ years, and now that I'm finally good at something, you guys tell me I can do everything? I can't bend air at all. Try explaining that. "

Lu waits for a moment. "Not only is that your opposite element, but it isn't your first. That should be normal for an earthbending Avatar."

"I'm not the Avatar," Yang repeats.

"Republic City has a great firebending instructor. You should go there and see if you can brush up on metalbending and learn your firebending," Lu explains.

Yang sighs. "I will leave for Republic City tomorrow for metalbending, but that's all. This Avatar thing—it isn't for me."

Dolma sighs. "Yang, you can't just say that. You don't get to decide. You've been chosen for the sacred task of protecting this world—you can't throw it all away for a pity party. We are going to Republic City on Choju tomorrow morning, and you are going to learn your firebending."


	4. Chapter 4: Taking Responsibility

_Early Morning_

Yang rubs his eyes and slowly drags his bag over to the elkephant. The furry creature grabs the bag with his trunk and tosses it on his back. Yang stretches and involuntarily lets out a groan from the strain. The air is bitter and empty; the tall buildings block the rays of sunlight that would otherwise brighten the day. Yang yanks the collar of his green/yellow T-shirt and sighs. He wears light brown shorts with hundreds of pockets he will probably never use.

Dolma walks out of Lu's house with a small duffel bag and a backpack she plans to keep strapped to her shoulders. The girl, in her blue shirt and tight pants, sits on her bag and yawns out loud.

"Did you sleep well?" Yang asks.

"Yeah, sure," Dolma says. "Your father's beds are softer than Fluffy's fur—even after a bath. I'm just a little anxious to get going."

Yang walks up to her and makes direct eye contact. Her brown eyes seem deep and mysterious with the lack of daylight. He notices the nervousness in her demeanor and pries his way into her privacy. "Why?"

Dolma scrunches her eyebrows together and slips a hand on her hip. "Aren't you the nosy one?"

Yang flinches. He steps back a little and bows his head down to the ground. He studies the insects that roam the cracked ground. He watches Dolma sigh and go to put her bag up. He sees a small, folded-up piece of paper in her back pocket. Yang grabs the slip of paper as Dolma gets on her toes to slip the bag up on Choju. The elkephant grumbles with the extra weight, but it seems to be okay for now. Yang opens the paper to its original size and begins reading the characters scrawled on it.

"Your mom is looking for you?" he gasps.

Dolma sees the paper and hisses at him. "Mind your own business!" she says. The girl airbends the paper into the air and jumps high to grab it. She rolls the paper into a ball and blasts a gust of wind that pushes it out somewhere far away. She lets out a dismal sigh.

"Why didn't you tell me your mom's been looking for you? How long have you known?"

Dolma, ashamed, holds her hands together atop her thighs. "Since the first week we arrived," she mutters.

"What?"

"It doesn't matter, so don't worry about it. If my mother isn't going to let me live my life, I'll do it anyway."

They bicker for a few minutes and then quickly grow silent. Rumi walks up with a small red bag. She wears her red headband and a red Fire Nation blouse that has slight gold trimming along its seams. There is a white t-shirt underneath that is visible about her neck. Her legs are partially covered with black tights that cut short at the shins.

"You invited _her_ to come along?" Dolma, annoyed, asks with disappointment in her voice.

"Of course!"

Rumi speaks up. "I lived with my dancing troupe and we usually practice when we're not performing, but people run away all the time. I'd much rather travel with the Avatar than with dancers."

Yang speaks up. "We don't know if I'm the Avatar yet."

Both girls stare at Yang with raised eyebrows. Rumi bites her lip and Dolma puts her hand up to her forehead. Yang stops speaking and shrivels into nothingness.

"You'll just slow us down," Dolma says." Fluffy's too sick to fly us right now, so we'll have to take ol' Choju if we want to get there. The added weight won't help."

"Choju should be able to handle it—he has the strength of an elephant, after all," Lu's voice explains from the doorway of his home.

Everyone turns to him. Yang smiles at his biological father because he knows this is where they will part ways for now. Prince Lu, his beautiful brown hair—which has not a single speck of gray!—spiked like a fork, smiles back. Yang thinks about the memories that must be flooding through his eyes: his tragic birth, Lu leaving him for someone else to take care of, the guilt that rode upon his spine for years, and the outlet in which he escaped the pain—music.

_Aaah!_ Dolma screams.

Yang turns around to see a sugar glider crawling all around his airbending friend, and he sees Rumi laughing as well. The nonbender grabs her small creature and pets it gently. Dolma puts herself back together and sighs in despair.

"His name's Tako," Rumi says. "He's really cute!"

The creature has a web of skin between its front and back feet. It is almost completely gray, though its head has a distinctly darker gray patch than the rest. Its underside appears white and it has a pink mouth and hands. Outside of color, the creature sports two large eyes and a tail that extends to a decent length. Yes, the sugar glider is "cute" by maybe her standards, but Dolma obviously does not appreciate the surprise factor.

"Let me guess: he's coming, too?"

Rumi nods. "Of course!"

Dolma rolls her eyes and continues putting bags up on the elkephant.

. . .

The morning sun burns his eyes. Meelo wakes up from the party he had last night and finds himself on a bench with seven empty soda cans occupying the ground underneath. The middle-aged man shields his eyes from the light and steps off the bench, but he then slips onto the ground and worsens his sudden headache. His throat is dry and his eyes are crusty, but he wipes away the discrepancies and begins to understand his location.

Meelo walks forward to the statue of Tenzin situated in the middle of the plateau. He leans against it and studies his surroundings. Several airbenders and acolytes are out from the late-night partying. The DJ apparently went home, most likely due to the surprise karaoke machine found in one of the storage rooms. Meelo did very well on this one song by Prince Lu, some young heartthrob down in the Earth Kingdom.

Tashi sits on another bench and rubs his head. He cannot recognize Meelo, or at least by his own understanding, and Jinora's brother lets out a laugh. He moves his view over to see a large blimp floating nearby the platform he stands on. He walks toward it and finds a man in black walking in his direction.

"Sir," the man begins, "who is in charge of this…establishment?"

Meelo burps. "You're lookin' at 'im."

The man forms an ugly expression and looks around the party zone for anyone in his right mind. He sees several airbenders lying down, but only a few seem conscious of their environment. He spots Tashi and beckons him closer. The man, relaxing from his headache, walks over as a result.

"Hello, sir, I'm here with the Republic Nation," the man says, his face articulating as much as his mouth. "President Maiko needs an airbender to cooperate in the Spirit World and was wondering if you could spare a man to overlook a small portion of the nation's population."

Tashi, his face dead with exhaustion, stares the man straight through his soul. "We aren't interested. The Air Nation plans to remain neutral in any advancements."

Meelo coughs and rubs a hand through his peppery hair. "We will have no part in Republic City! You guys have been nothing but trouble since Grandpa Aang founded the city!"

The man chuckles. "I think you mean the Republic _Nation_. We have earned our right as a world power now. Tell that to your grandfather—oh, wait, the Avatar cycle is over."

Meelo goes to charge at the man, but Tashi holds an arm out to block him. "Thank you for the offer, but we will pass." He looks the man hard in the eyes.

The man looks back for a long moment, but his eyes relax and he shrugs. "You're making a mistake," he says. The large phone hooked on his side begins to ring.

"Hello?" he asks involuntarily. He then smiles. "I'll tell them." The man puts his phone away and looks back at Tashi. "We have no use for you now; you're of no value. We've got ourselves an airbender already."

The man metalbends a wire attachment out of his belt and tosses it into the sky. The wire eventually attaches to his blimp and he catches a grip on it. He gives the two a salute and jumps off the platform of the party, causing him to fly up into the sky. He decreases the distance between himself and the blimp, and he later manages to make it to safety. He waves goodbye as the black blimp hovers away from the air temple.

. . .

Lu tosses the last bag over Choju's back and smiles with success. He pulls his collar out in a smooth fashion and flashes a smile at the teens, each of which produce a different reaction. Dolma rolls her eyes, Rumi giggles slightly, and Yang smiles nostalgically.

Choju only lets Yang ride him. The creature only responds to the kid that sobbed to him the year before. Some sort of bond has formed between them, a bond similar to that of two strong magnets. Tako rests in Choju's antlers. As Yang helps Dolma and Rumi up on top of the elkephant, he pauses before joining them. The earthbender stares at the father he never knew existed—the father he grew proud to know.

"I never thought I'd come to meet my dad…my _other_ dad…but I'm so glad that I did," he says with a smile.

Lu returns the gesture. "I'm so happy to have been able to help you in your endeavors. I was becoming quite the celebrity-snob since I had no care in the world. My own father's illness brought me into a deep slump. I ran from responsibility, but now I've found it. Son, you always have a home here. If I could go with you, I would, but this city needs me."

Yang nods. "I'll write to you in Republic City."

His father looks at him and makes a puzzled face. "I know you're in denial, Yang, but you need to understand who you are. When the world starts calling for your help, you need to answer back. Try to reach Avatar Korra. She can shed some spiritual light on everything." He notices the hesitance in Yang's eyes and settles down some. "I'll see you later."

Yang hugs his dad tight. "So long," he says.

The young Avatar snaps the reins that maintain a hold on Choju and sets off on a path out of Ba Sing Se. The three kids go with the rhythm of Choju's walking. Yang glances back repeatedly and watches his year-long home fade into the distance. His brown hair sticks to his forehead with sweat as the desert heat begins to set in.

Rumi and Dolma make side comments as Choju walks, though neither initiates any real conversation. Tako runs around the antlers and over the kids' arms. The ride is awkward. There is sand at every glance. The town is now invisible. Rumi's headband is soaked with sweat.

"So why do you wear the headband, anyway?" Dolma asks.

"I just like it," the girl says.

"Then take it off."

Rumi adjusts the headband and remains quiet. Yang tells Dolma to knock it off, but the girls start fighting. Yang, his head hanging lower than usual, sighs deeply and, bored, listens to the squalling for petty entertainment.

"How are we getting to Republic City again?" Dolma continues.

Yang frowns. "I don't know, I thought you guys knew the way."

They both glance toward, Rumi, who perks up at their dependence. "If we get near the Serpent's Pass, we can go by boat and then take a long journey up the Earth Kingdom to Republic City…err, Nation."

They follow the road and ride for several hours more. Cars zip by almost as if the trio remain still. The sun also seems to be racing against them; it runs out of the sky and slowly allows darkness to overwhelm the atmosphere. Eventually, they come upon a hotel. The housing does not seem overly impressive, at least by Lu's standards; however, it seems sturdy enough to last the night. Choju is exhausted as it is, so they must find some way to stay overnight.

"We don't have money," Dolma sighs.

Yang looks in his bag and finds a stack of yuans wrapped up in a string. They are thin sheets of paper covered in pink ink. Yang takes a few pieces of currency and goes to the reception desk for a few minutes.

Dolma looks the building up and down. It is made of wood, so it is not the most sturdy building she's ever been in. Even further, it has a musty look to it: the building has that "log cabin" look to it, but an outdated one that was probably abandoned years ago. The wood is covered with a layer of thick dust and the windows are glossed with weathering. Dolma groans at the downgrade, but Rumi seems happy enough.

"What's wrong with you? Never been in a hotel before?"

The Fire Nation dancer frowns. "I lived with my dance troupe for years—this is an upgrade for me. Just because you were in your fancy little mansion for over a year—"

"That 'fancy little mansion' was Yang's father's, not mine! Don't you even try to pin this all on me!"

"I'm not. You're overreacting," Rumi says as she scratches the back of her sweat-stained leg.

The two stop their bickering when the creaky door of the building swings open. Yang runs out and smiles triumphantly as he showcases his room key. The key was rusty and very standard-looking; the lock would probably be easy to bust into.

"Did you make sure to get a first-floor room? We do have this elkephant with us," Dolma reminds him.

Choju, who had been eating grass for a few minutes, looked up with a sense of curiosity. "Hooh?" It cocks its head sideways a little and allows grass to spill out of its mouth. Tako scrambles to stay in the antlers.

Yang smacks a hand to his forehead and goes back to change rooms. The girls laugh at his failure and watch him go back in the building. Dolma wafts a huge gust of air in her face and emits a sigh of relief.

"Can I have some air?" Rumi asks.

Dolma glances at her and smiles. "Sure." The teenage airbender knocks Rumi over with a blast of wind, and the girl splats onto the ground like a dead bird. Dolma goes back to fanning herself and calms down her own laughter.

"Why are you so harsh to me?" Rumi, infuriated, asks.

Dolma stops for a moment and thinks. "Maybe because I don't trust you yet."

"Let's fight, then," the girl insists. "You'll see that I can definitely pull my own weight."

Dolma raises an eyebrow for a moment and chuckles. "Alright, then, let's fly you south for with winter."

Dolma jumps back to give herself some bending room and collects a giant circle of air. As she collects, Rumi starts running to her. Dolma releases the wind, but she misses her target. Rumi dodges the attack with a quick jump and lands on her hands. She does a momentary handstand and pushes the ground, resulting in Rumi jumping back up on her feet. As Dolma begins airbending again, the dancer quickly jabs her left shoulder and then her right. The girl, surprised, spins around to be blocked in the legs, neck, and chest. Dolma falls down and lies on the ground, momentarily paralyzed, and starts panicking.

"Relax," Rumi says, "it'll wear off in about an hour."

"What did you do to me?"

Rumi points a finger down to Dolma's general direction. "I'm a chi blocker. I can pinpoint the flow of energy through your body and momentarily pause its circulation. It's an act of self-defense that all the dancers learned, " she explains. "It keeps us safe from the perverts that may come into our trailers."

The two girls converse, Dolma still on the ground, when Yang walks back out with the right key. He sees Choju eating grass nearby and goes to grab his reins. He leads the elkephant over to Rumi and Dolma and looks at the chaos that occurred just before.

"What happened? Did she faint?"

"No," Dolma yelps, "that girl's crazy!"

Yang looks over to Rumi, Dolma's obvious target. The girl bites her upper lip and lets it slide back into place on its own. She feels of her headband and pushes back some hair. "I blocked her chi to calm her down. She was going to create the next hurricane."

Yang glances at the other girl, who has a very guilty smile. He picks her up gently and then slings her vertically over Choju's hairy back. She sighs at the missed opportunity he had and smells Choju's grass-scented fur. The other two move on to the back of the big log cabin and see a small door behind it.

"The man said we could tie Choju to a wooden post near the window and let him sleep outside. He doesn't want elkephant droppings in the room—apparently Choju produces a lot of—"

"Okay, we get it."

Yang slips Dolma down and has Rumi help him drag her in. Choju is tied to the post and left outside without supervision. Tako scurries in and hides under the covers of one of the beds. Yang sets Dolma down gently on the other of the two beds.

"Two beds?" she asks. "I'm not sharing a bed!"

"I'll sleep outside, then," Yang mutters. "What's gotten into you? You haven't been the same since we left for Ba Sing Se!"

Dolma looks down shyly at her feet. Though she is still paralyzed, the girl seems to want to curl up in a ball. "I told you about my mom, right? About how she's been looking for me? Well, you were right before. I did run away," she says.

"So your mother has been looking for you all year long and you decide to tell me today? Speaking of which, why didn't you admit all of this earlier this morning? "

"Not really. I'm not her top priority; her work is more important. Ever since my father died, I've been blocked from life itself. I left so I could experience what she did when she was my age. Is that running away, or is it finally arriving?"

Yang stops for a moment. "Where is she now?"

"I don't know. Sense her with your Avatar powers," Dolma jests.

"This is a serious matter, Dolma!"

"What's serious is getting you to that city! You need to learn your bending so you can protect us—not _parent_ us!"

Yang throws the bags down on the ground and marches outside. He raises both arms diagonally so that they make an "X." As a result, two pieces of earth come together at a point. Yang goes inside the triangle of earth with a pillow and blanket and then earthbends the "tent" shut. He sleeps in the dark without another word for the rest of the night. Dolma and Rumi do the same.

. . .

Lu changes into his bedclothes; blue pajamas with vertical lines of darker blue streaking down. He shuts off the lamp and closes his eyes. After a long day with his son, and later with his agent, the man finally gets some rest. His brown hair lies on the pillow and he slowly begins to drool. Sleeping is wonderful.

Until the doorbell rings. Lu grumpily hops out of bed, slips on some badgermole-styled bedroom shoes, and flops down the stairs of his grand house. He runs to the front door. His shoes smack against the ground and produce a "slip-slap" rhythm that is broken when he treads over his rug. The man turns his doorknob and looks into the dark night.

A woman of grayed hair stares at him with weariness. She wears firm, square-rimmed glasses and an airbending outfit. Her air bison can be seen in the near distance, but her wrinkles are much more evident in the light of his front porch.

"Jinora, what are you doing here at three in the morning?"

The woman narrows her eyes and stares at the grown man. His pants are twisted slightly so that the middle is angled slightly to his right and he apparently missed some buttons on his shirt. His hair recreated the impression the pillow had on his head, and his eyes were glazed with sleepiness. She sighs.

"Sorry to bother your beauty sleep, but I'm looking for someone."

The man rolls his eyes. He opens the door as a semi-welcoming suggestion and turns inward to indicate her entrance. Jinora steps in slowly and begins taking in her surroundings. She views the grand living room in the dimly-lit lampshade light and sits on one of the couches.

Lu mutters something under his breath and slowly turns around. He slams the front door completely shut and twists the locks. He turns back around and sits on his couch. He faces the aged woman and sees the worry in her eyes. "Who?"

Jinora frowns and seems almost vulnerable. Her body shakes a little and her voice trembles slightly with fear. She looks up to him, tears releasing from their ducts, and blinks hard. "My daughter."


	5. Chapter 5: Jinora

Yang, waking up, slams his head on the rock fort he had created late last night. He bends the earth back down into the ground and rubs the back of his head in throbbing pain. The bender brushes his hair down with his hand and tiptoes over to the door leading into his friends' room. Choju, who is still tied up nearby, blows his trunk like a horn in an attempt to get Yang's attention. However, he has a more important motive right now. He opens the door a crack and looks inside.

A slim ray of sunlight slips in through the crack and exposes Dolma's eyes. She opens them, hisses, and turns around in her bed. Yang sighs and opens the door wider. Dolma is still in bed, though Rumi is putting on her shoes and tying her hair up in the usual ponytail. Her headband is placed around her forehead once again. She smiles upon seeing him.

"Hey, Avatar," she says.

"Don't call me that."

"Whatever. Anyway, we better get going. Choju seems ready and you seem ready. We're just waiting on Ms. Airhead."

Dolma sits up and glares at the two teens that hover over her bed. She groans and glances around the room. On her head lies the sugar glider named Tako—dead asleep. Dolma yelps as the creature hops down and jumps into Rumi's arms. She and Yang laugh.

"More like Ms. Bedhead," Yang chuckles.

Dolma groans and wafts a current of air through her hair, resulting in a flawless, lengthy hairstyle. She smiles provocatively at them and gets out of bed. All three of them grab their things and prepare out the door.

"So we need to talk about your Avatar situation," Dolma says.

Yang's bottom lip curves inward and he blinks. "What about it?"

Rumi stacks the few bags on Choju's back and hops on top of the elkephant's large body. Tako scurries up one of the antlers and nests in a curved indentation. She glances over at the two benders speaking, but she only continues her work.

"You need to keep your bending a secret. Stick to earth and metal since they qualify as your birth element. Your firepower—you know, the fire you almost singed my hair off with? Yeah, that fire needs to be put away. If you aren't supposed to exist, then you should act like that until we find out what to do next."

Yang studies Dolma for a moment, her brown eyes soft like mud. He nods and scurries up Choju's neck and grabs the reins. He sits in the front and leaves a gap between himself and Rumi.

"Come on up," the girl smiles.

Dolma blasts a gust of air under her that propels her forward. She falls gracefully, almost like a feather, and lands right on Choju.

"Let's go."

Choju starts the long walk to the Serpent's Pass, a valuable checkpoint in their journey to the Republic Nation. As they walk, Yang tells stories of his childhood to Dolma and Rumi. The former was there for every single remembrance, though she sarcastically mentions words like "No way!" or "Really?" to bug the Avatar. Rumi, however, is genuinely interested. She asks questions and laughs at jokes, which annoys Dolma.

"So, Dolma, do you have any stories to tell Rumi?" Yang asks.

"Sure. Once upon a time, in an air temple long ago, there was a girl named Molma. This girl was an airbender," she says.

"Ooh," Yang mutters.

"Shush," Dolma snaps. "Anyway, she was an airbender—a _remarkable_ airbender. However, since she couldn't project her stupid soul through space like her mother could, she was a failure. This girl was just slightly under par with bending masters by age eleven, but her abilities were questions by her mother every time. Eventually, when she was fifteen, she got sick of it and ditched her family. She went to live with this weird kid and his even weirder uncle and finally fit in. Then she was stuck riding on smelly animals and meeting girls with terrible fashion sense. The End."

"Well dang," Yang says.

"What? I thought it was pretty good. Do you know a girl named 'Molma' or something?" Rumi asks.

Dolma's face is flat with an annoyed expression. "You're stupider than I expected," she says.

"And you're a jerk of an airbender! It's not like I know anything about you. You won't say anything other than insults."

"Maybe that's because you're so quiet about your past," Dolma mutters. "You won't tell us anything. Why do you even wear that headband?"

Rumi sighs and feels of the material on her head. She closes her eyes. "My parents were killed by earthbenders when I was little. I almost died as well. This headband was part of my mom's silly workout gear. I wear it for sentimentality," she says quietly.

Dolma narrows her eyes at the girl, though she slowly gives up and offers a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, Rumi, I guess I have been kind of hard on you. We all have parent troubles I guess. It's a teen thing or something. My mom's so uptight someone must've metal bent a pole up her—"

"Hold that thought," Yang interrupts. "I see a sign up here."

The trio, on their majestic trunk-nosed elkephant, clumsily ride up to the wooden sign in the rocky ground.

"'Serpent's Pass: 60 minute drive,'" Rumi reads.

"How long will that take for Choju?" Dolma asks.

"Probably more than that…looks like we're in for more road to travel," Yang says in a groan.

They walk on and notice the blazing sun growing higher up in the sky. Yang slings a handful of sweat on the ground. He can hear it sizzle afterward. Rumi's headband soaks up the perspiration on her forehead, though she allows it to soak up anyway. Dolma fights Tako for the water canteen hooked up on Choju's side. Much to her dismay, the sugar glider wins. Cacti pop up every now and then, though the terrain is mostly barren.

Eventually, Choju stops for a drink of water from the canteen—just for Yang to realize Tako drank it all. The sugar glider screeches and clings to the antlers of their transportation. Dolma and Rumi, still on Choju, gasp for fresh air. Dolma is so sun-fatigued that she cannot bend any air.

"It's like there's more heat than air in the air," she mutters. "I think I just made no sense."

"Sure," Rumi says.

Yang bends a piece of earth and slices a cactus's top off. The result is a small cactus bowl of water. He looks at the water, the beautiful liquid trapped inside, and opens his mouth longingly.

"Stop!" Dolma squeals. She airbends the cactus out of his hand and causes it to land water-down on the ground. The water sizzles into the earth like before. "I've heard somewhere that cactus juice isn't good for you," she says.

"What do you think you're doing? It's do or die out here!" Yang says, his cheeks now getting flustered with heat.

"Stop it, you're losing your mind!" the girl insists.

Rumi steps up and pokes fingers in Yang's shoulders, legs, neck, chest, and head. He falls over, incapable of movement, and they put the young Avatar on Choju while they think for a moment. Sand begins drifting in the wind. Dolma, her hair now ruined with dirt and sweat, sighs at the heat and mutters to herself. Rumi begins suggesting ideas, like going back, but she is not met with favorable answers.

Yang looks up at the sky, up at the blazing sun, and suddenly sees a black dot circling overhead. His eyes grow large and he begins yelping. He moves slightly and causes his whole body to slip off the elkephant's furry hide and into the dust. He spits out sand and feels the small pieces crunching between his teeth. He sticks his tongue out in discontent.

"What's wrong with you?" Dolma says with a smirk.

"Buzzard wasps!" he squeals.

Rumi and Dolma squint at Yang's pointing, though the dot in the sky isn't a buzzard wasp: it's an air bison. The creature lowers in altitude and finally thumps on the ground. Its similarities to airbending tattoos baffles Rumi as the dust settles. She runs up and throws herself onto the creature. As she snuggles the air bison, Yang gawks at the sun, and Dolma stands by Choju in a state of vulnerability, a woman steps off the bison.

In her airbending attire, the lady, clearly aging in her recent years, feels relatively superior. She glances at the baking earthbender and the loony redhead sitting to their transportation and then gazes upon her runaway daughter. The woman has on her same square glasses and a genuinely young face hidden by wrinkles and stress. She speaks up.

"Nice to see you again, Dolma," Jinora says.

The girl flinches upon hearing her name. "How-how did you find me?"

"I have ways of knowing," the woman explains. "Once you become in charge of an entire nation's affairs, you know a lot of people."

_Dang it, Lu,_ Dolma says in her head.

Jinora goes up on her bison and returns with two large jugs of water. She opens the jugs and allows Yang and Rumi to quickly chug them down. She offers a final one to Dolma, though the girl shies away from the chance at hydration.

"I didn't put anything in those jugs, Dolma. Stop acting like this," Jinora frowns.

Dolma takes the water and repeats the actions of her friends. Yang and Rumi lean against Choju and watch the action unfold. Rumi brushes Tako's head. Once Dolma finally finishes her water, she looks back to her mother.

"I knew you wouldn't be ready for a journey like this," the woman says. "Why did you go by land anyway? Were you so impatient that you just had to leave at that very minute? Fluffy had a cold, that was it."

"You wouldn't understand," Dolma mutters as if she has the upper hand in the argument.

"_Enlighten _me," Jinora demands with crossed arms.

Dolma looks back at Yang, and he shakes his head desperately for her to keep the possibility a secret. She nods without her mother seeing.

"We wanted to go to Republic City—err, Nation, as soon as possible. We left Fluffy there for Lu."

Yang chimes in. "Dolma has been helping me out immensely, Sifu Jinora. I probably wouldn't have made it this far without her."

Jinora raises an eyebrow. "What kind of cacophony excuse is that? Dolma, the point I'm trying to make is that you're making rash, spur-of-the-moment decisions. You don't even know those kids! Well, you know Yang, but he just learned he isn't one of us. And Yang, be quiet."

Dolma stomps her foot down. "Mom, I can make friends with whoever I want and your stupid _advice _only makes me want to run away more!"

"Silence, young lady. You are going back to the air temple with me! Fluffy is waiting for you. We are going back to Lu's house and getting both you and that bison home."

Jinora airbends Dolma up on the air bison and demands her to stay there. She looks over to Yang and Rumi. "You two aren't of my concern, but you almost died. Maybe you should rethink this trip?"

"Can't," Yang says. "This is important."

Jinora sighs. "Fair enough. I won't stop you."

With that, the old woman bends herself on the air bison and calls for it to fly on. Yang and Rumi, both terrified of the airbending master, watch as their friend is dragged away by her overprotective mother. The two of them glance at each other nervously and Yang watches them go.

"This isn't as fun anymore," Rumi sighs.

"No, no it's not," Yang agrees.

"So…do you like Pai Sho?"

Yang makes a weird face. "What even is that?"

. . .

"You'll have to speak to me eventually," Jinora sighs.

Dolma frowns as she loses track of her friends down below. She sighs and lies down on the bed of the air bison's back. She doesn't bother to reach them again because her mother will just defeat her in battle and bring her back on. There seems to be no point. She stares at her mom's graying hair flying all about in the wind. If only Air actually was the element of freedom.

"So I put your uncle in charge of the temple while I'm gone. I wonder how ruined the place is?" she chuckles.

Dolma smiles lightly and thinks of her Uncle Meelo. "I miss him," she says.

"You'll get to see him when you come back," her mother points out.

"I know, but I really like my friends."

Jinora takes her eyes off of the path in front of her bison and stares at her daughter. "Tell me about them," she smiles.

. . .

Yang and Rumi continue going through the desert. Up in the distant horizon, they have spotted what seems to be the Serpent's Pass. Both of them, though disappointed in Dolma's absence, are excited to reach the checkpoint.

However, off in the distance, yelling can be heard. Yang stops Choju and looks all around to see nothing. He frowns and allows Choju to continue walking. However, soon after, more yelling can be heard. Choju stops as a blast of fire is shot at Yang's direction. He looks over to the source and finds a group of shady characters ready to pounce on them.

"Hey there," a sneaky-looking man with a beard says.

"Um, hi," Yang says nervously.

"We were wondering if you have anything interesting in those bags."

There are about eight men in total. Rumi watches as they creep closer to them. Choju blasts a sound from its trunk and Tako screeches up in the antlers. Yang settles the animals down and hops off. Rumi follows him.

"We don't want any trouble," he says lamely.

"That's what every person says before he gets into trouble," a redhead points out in the back.

"Just give us the luggage and elkephant and we'll call it a day. That sugar glider looks worthless," the man in charge orders.

"Hey, Tako is an important part of Team Av—" Rumi stops herself. "Team Aviator."

"Team Aviator? Stupid kids and their weird names. Let's get 'em, boys," the man says.

Yang earthbends a rock to smash into one man and slings another stone at another man with a kick of the foot. Yang lifts two fists in the air and produces two large boulders from the ground that are used to shield attacks. Rumi dances among the men and begins her chi blocking. One of them stands up to the challenge and gets paralyzed soon after.

Yang blocks the attacks and soon jumps over the barrier to metalbend a guy's watch too tight, causing him to yelp. Yang quickly undoes his action to provide relief and apologizes for it. The man accepts the apology and slings a blast of water in Yang's face, through which he becomes fully hydrated again. The canteen at the water slinger's hip is now empty.

"Bring it," Yang says to the four benders, including the leader, that stand before him. He slams one of the two shielding rocks into one of the thieves and tilts it over to fall on him. However, the guy is also an earthbender and smashes through the rock with a fist. He slings the rocks back at Yang, who collects them up and tosses them back. One of the men falls back.

Rumi pokes the arm of a metalbender. He tries to use a piece of wire to tie her hands up, but she pokes one of his arms and he loses the chi path momentarily. She pokes between his eyes and takes him down. She has dealt with two of them and Yang is fighting four, so that means two are still somewhere. She looks around to see Choju and Tako now in wooden cages. One of the men went back to their storage truck and the other apparently got the cages ready. Rumi back flips over to the cage and begins trying to set her friends free.

Yang slams a rock into the previous earthbender and finally knocks him out. Two down, two to go. Yang is forced to step back a few feet and his back meets with Rumi's in a bump. The two of them turn around in battle-ready poses and then laugh. A long piece of metal is then thrown at Rumi and she is knocked to the ground by the blast. Yang tries to remove the metal, but he doesn't have enough experience to successfully do so. He knocks back some rocks and dodges a blast of fire. Three of the four unconscious men are back up. The one still out is the earthbender, much to Yang's relief. He fights five of the seven now. Rumi is slammed into a cage and is stuck near Choju and Tako. Yang, outnumbered and alone, struggles to maintain freedom. He thinks about firebending but realizes that would blow his entire cover. He sighs and hurls a rock over at the firebender.

. . .

"And Rumi is a chi-blocker, too! She's really cool. We just started getting along when you showed up," Dolma says, pauses, and then sighs, "but I think she's pretty cool. She isn't a bender, though."

Jinora smiles at the girl's comment. "Some of the best people aren't, Dolma," she says. "Nonbenders have certain qualities that redeem themselves more than you'd ever know. Your father was a nonbender until Korra opened the spirit portals."

Dolma gasps. "Really? That's so cool! To think that Yang was a nonbender for fifteen years, but now he's the Avatar." She gulps after realizing what she just said.

"_What!?_"

Jinora beckons Dolma to sit up with her at the head of the bison. Dolma crawls up slowly and carefully and plants herself right beside her mother. Jinora's face, though old with almost six decades behind her, appears young with curiosity. She tells Dolma to repeat what she just said.

"I said that Yang has been a nonbender for fifteen years…but now he's the Avatar," Dolma says shyly.

"You're saying that earthbender is the Avatar that we've…been…searching for in the Earth Kingdom for so many years?" Jinora asks loudly, but she starts to slow down in her speaking upon putting the puzzle together. "We've been harboring Yang the whole time! That makes so much sense. The problem is that the world needs its Avatar now more than ever. We have to take him to the White Lotus, Dolma."

Dolma shakes her head. "We can't let anyone know—not at once. If we tell anyone, even those people you said, word will get out. It's like how school used to be."

Jinora nods slowly and puts a hand on Dolma's. The girl looks at her mother's wrinkled hand and grips it tighter. "Tell me, do you like traveling with them?"

Dolma nods slowly and hides her eyes from her mother's view. There are tears in them. She sighs and stretches out her body on the air bison's furry hide.

"Perhaps," the woman begins. "Perhaps you _should _go with him on his journey."

Dolma raises up in shock. "What?"

"You should help Yang. He needs all the help he can get. I helped Avatar Korra when I was a kid," she says quietly.

"Really, Mom? Thank you!"

Dolma hugs her mother tight and the woman begins turning the air bison around. "Ever since your father, I just can't take the pain anymore, Dolma. I was trying to—"

"I know, Mom," Dolma says soothingly. "I know."

. . .

"You won't get away with this!" Yang yells as he is tossed in a wooden cage. He was just chi blocked and tossed in one of the cages, so he is effectively a nonbender at this point. The boy begins kicking at the wooden bars and attempts to pry his way out of the box.

"It's pointless," Rumi says.

The two of them are in smaller crates that are stacked against Choju's larger one. Tako is placed in a very small cage for kittens and nibbles at the metal door. The eight men pile into the car, two of them sitting in the back with Rumi and Yang, and the vehicle begins driving.

"You're a cutie," one of the men says as he touches Rumi's chin.

"Back off, you sicko," she says with a swift jab of the fingers between her wooden prison's bars. The fingers jab at his elbow and the man grasps his hand in pain.

"Knock it off, Zen," the other guy says. "That girl is feistier than a turtle duck on a loaf of bread."

Rumi adjusts her headband and sits against the back of the crate. She sighs. Yang twitches a finger and smiles softly to himself.

Up in the sky is the same dot Yang saw before. He sees it and blinks, but the dot is still there. He rubs his eyes. He shakes his head. The dot remains. Suddenly, however, he sees two more dots falling quicker. Each dot swoops into view—they're Dolma and her mother!

Dolma and Jinora airbend themselves a rather elegant landing on top of the truck. Jinora sticks her feet through the driver's open window and kicks a blast of wind that sends two of the front-seat passengers out the window. The passenger door flies open before they fall out. The driver ducks in time and raises back up as Jinora's legs recoil. The woman crawls to the other side of the truck's roofing and slips into the passenger's seat. She kicks out and knocks the driver off his seat. He slips out of the truck and can be seen rolling in the sand.

Three people are in the back seats of the car, and each one attempts to grab Jinora's neck. She elbows one in the face and steps on the brake with her left foot. The car roughly stops in the desert and slings everyone to the right. The three men are pulled out by a now-free Yang. Meanwhile, Dolma opens the lock of Rumi's, Choju's, and Tako's cages.

"Come on. We need to round up those thieves," the airbender says. She takes Rumi and blasts them into the air.

Yang has all three men out in a line. With his chi blocks clear, Yang bends an ant-hill shaped chunk of earth to block each man's movements. The elderly airbender brings one of the large wooden cages and Yang bends the earth back before forcing them in. The two men that were both in the back are knocked out by a quick stone, but Yang goes ahead and slips them in the other large crate that Rumi was in.

Eventually, Dolma and Rumi round up the last three escapees and put them in the crates. They are put in the truck and left in the sun. Jinora walks up to the two of them with Yang and beckons the group into a meeting of sorts.

"I'm glad to see you two are safe. We would've been here sooner, but Dolma spotted the vehicle and I saw the cages, so I put two and two together and called Ba Sing Se police to drive out here. These criminals will be behind bars in a couple hours," she says.

"Thank you," Yang bows slightly.

"No problem. Now I want you guys to take care of my Dolma. She's a handful, but she's a smart and powerful girl. I must get back to the air temple and see how bad my brother destroyed it, but it's been a pleasure to meet you two.," the woman lectures.

"Thanks, Mom," Dolma sighs with a smile.

"Hey," she says. "Wait: do you guys need a lift?"

The three glance at each other and Yang looks at his animal companion. "What about Choju?"

Jinora smiles. "I'm prepared for everything."

. . .

_In only a few hours' time, Jinora managed to get the kids and their animals to Republic City. Yang, Rumi, Dolma, and Tako were invited on top of the air bison for the trip, but Choju was suspended from the animal via a leather harness otherwise used for emergencies. The spectacle was humorous; a large bison was connected to an elkephant via a long piece of rope and a harness. However, it worked, and that's what matters. Once they set foot in Republic City, everything finally began to pick up. _

Yang flops off the air bison and accidentally slides down its back and lands hard on his stomach. Rumi and Dolma laugh. Rumi flips off and lands straight on her feet and Dolma slides off the side regularly. Jinora airbends herself to safety on the ground. She grunts on impact but shakes off the expression on her face.

"Now, Dolma," she says, "I want you to follow your friends and keep your nose clean. Don't do anything stupid."

"Yes, Mom," Dolma groans.

"Rumi, best of luck with your travels. I hope you find something you're good at," the woman continues.

"Thank you," Rumi says.

Jinora finally turns to Yang and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do anything reckless, Yang. I've known you all your life and you've never been so strong. Don't let it get to your head. _Remember who you are_," she says.

Yang nods as the woman gets back on her air bison. She smiles at Dolma with longing in her eyes and yells "yip yip!" for the air bison to go. She lifts off the ground and gains altitude.

Jinora, as she flies back to the air temple, begins to think about her daughter's future experiences with the Avatar. She remembers the thrills of helping Korra and re-establishing order in the Earth Kingdom for the years after Kuvira's defeat. However, she remembers the dangers Unalaq possessed during Harmonic Convergence and frowns a little.

_I hope Dolma knows what she's getting into,_ Jinora says to herself. _She's in for the adventure of a lifetime._

. . .

Yang, Dolma, and Rumi ride on Choju around Republic City, which has recently been labeled the "Republic Nation." There are buildings larger than any air temple building Yang and Dolma have ever seen, and Rumi has never seen so many people roaming the streets—Ba Sing Se pales compared to this populated city. It looks like a trail of ants through the whole city. Several people seem shady, while others appear regular and busy.

Yang leads Choju to a loud meeting and into the crowd of people. They clear away as the elephant puffs air out through its trunk. Tako, meanwhile, screeches at people to move away. Several scurry to opposite ends of the crowd while others complain and barely move in time. Yang stops Choju about halfway through the crowd and looks at a podium on a raised platform. A man of about forty years occupies the stage with a woman and a line of guards surrounding them. He has no facial hair, yet he has gray hair with a streak of white. The combination makes his aging process look remarkable. The man goes up to the podium and experiences several flashes of light from photographers. He holds out his hands to force them to pause.

"Hello, Republic Nation! I, as your president, am pleased to say that we have successfully conquered several hundred more square kilometers of land in the Spirit World. Our men have worked hard to develop buildings that will hopefully thin out the overpopulation we are facing, and although times are tough, I am going to require everyone's participation to make sure this is done in a fashionable manner. If you would like to apply for a piece of land and housing in the Spirit World, protection guaranteed, then please go to one of our many booths and submit your application. You can find them posted all over the capital, The Great Republic, and in your individual cities as well. This nation will be the first to thrive in two different worlds!" the man says loudly into the podium's microphone.

The audience cheers. Yang, Dolma, and Rumi stand awkwardly among the loud cheering and kind of shrink down into Choju. Yang looks over to the man as several questions are being asked for him.

"_Sir, what is happening to the spirits when you take their land?"_

"_President Maiko, What are the consequences of destroying said spirits?"_

"_What are you going to do if the Avatar is still alive?"_

"Enough," the man says. "No spirits are harmed in this operation. And as for the Avatar…well, there is no Avatar. The Earth Kingdom was searched for nearly a decade. If there is an Avatar in this world right now, he has no right to ensue upon our nation's progress. I will stand by my decision no matter what I may face. My wife, Li Tang, and I have co-founded the whole operation and plan on finishing it as soon as possible, spirits permitting."

The woman beside him smiles shallowly. She looks to be in her thirties; she's obviously younger than her husband. She has darker skin and brown hair that fits in well with her blue eyes. Her brown hair, which is very long, is fitted in small hair loopies. She wears two bracelets on each arm. Li Tang, as the man called her, breathes in and goes over to the podium.

"What my husband is trying to say is that even if the Avatar was right in this audience, we would have him incarcerated as a threat to the growth and expansion of our nation. If we lived sixteen years without the Avatar, then we can live many more to come. After all, Republic Nation serves as a melting pot for all cultures. We can handle our own affairs because of this man right here! Long live the Republic Nation!" she chants.

The crowd chants as well. Yang's face goes pale and his mouth is stretched out wide. Rumi and Dolma glance at his expression and awkwardly stare in different directions. Tako eats a small scrap of food it found on the ground and ignores the commotion.

Yang gulps. Incarceration?


	6. Chapter 6: Thievery

"This town is too big," Dolma cries.

The trio ride on through their fifth hour of touring the city for a hotel. Choju whines after every few steps due to the ache in his feet. Tako, on the other hand, rests in its antlers and dreams peacefully. Yang, Rumi, and Dolma are all scrunched together on the back of the elkephant, however, as he snoops around with his long trunk and smells the different scents of the city.

"Maybe we took a wrong turn?" Rumi suggests with a shrug.

"No," Yang says, "I think there aren't any hotels cheap enough for us."

They continue moving through the city and see people begging on the sides of roads. Women and their children plead for a place to stay and men hide their faces in shame. Though buildings and streets bustle with activity, there is a higher percentage of homeless people than Yang anticipated. The Republic Nation is a powerful exporting land mass, so why are there beggars everywhere?

"This doesn't make sense," he says. "I thought Ba Sing Se was bad…but this is worse!"

Rumi looks at all the children with rumbling stomachs and desperate cries. One little girl sifts through a trash can for even the tiniest of scraps. She sees the girl sense something and run in a dark alley in between two large buildings. She immediately feels a shiver go up her spine—they need to bring that little girl back.

"That girl went in the dark alley. There's no telling what could be back there. Yang, I can't just stay on this animal and watch people ask for food," she pleads.

"I want to help, too," Dolma says, "but we can't supply everyone with food. They would fight over it. Yang, as the Avatar, can't you do anything?"

Yang looks at her with anger in his eyes. "Don't call me that in public! We need more proof!"

"Stop denying your destiny, Yang. This isn't the time for a pity party," Dolma scolds.

"It's not like that, Dolma. I know I can bend two elements, but I haven't gone all white-eyed and Avatar'd it up," Yang explains. "I can't connect with anyone and I don't sense anything difference—the only thing I know is that I can bend a few elements. It doesn't make sense," he says.

Dolma closes her highs, exhales, and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I blew up at you. I guess I've just started to think you can make a difference. You can't—not yet, at least." She smiles. Her brown hair blows gently in the smooth wind. Her brownie-colored eyes soften at his face. "Now let's get that girl out of the alley."

Choju stops short of the mini division. Rumi and Dolma hop off and have Yang stay with the animals. Despite his protests, they both run off into the darkness and leave him to twiddle his thumbs. The teen brushes a hand through his hair and sighs. He looks at Tako and breathes in.

"I don't have the confidence of an Avatar, let alone the spirituality. Those two are so sure of me, and so is my father. How am I supposed to represent such nobility when I couldn't do anything for most of my life? Well?"

The sugar glider blinks slowly. It twitches a little and hops on Yang's head. He smiles slightly and pulls the creature off. He apologizes for questioning the poor animal. After all, he just met Tako not too long ago.

Nearby, Rumi walks through the alley. There are papers scattered on the ground, some stained with dirt and wear. The walls are made of bricks that seem to secure some sort of secret. She squints in the darkness and finds a shadow of something. She notices a large dumpster, slimy and green, leaning against one of the walls. She peeks inside and sees the little girl. The girl's green eyes fit right in with her surroundings, as if she is cursed to live this life forever. Rumi flashes a Yuan at the girl and pats her head. She pulls the child, probably about six years old, out of the dumpster and encourages her to walk out the other entrance. She could not see what the girl wears though she had dirt residue on her hands when she set the girl down. Rumi smiles. She heads back.

Dolma follows her friend through the darkness though she loses track. She hears quick breathing, a pattern much unlike Rumi's, and backs up a little. Suddenly, a figure lunges at her. Dolma falls down and her bag is taken from her shoulders—ripped right off! She chases the person until daylight starts to infiltrate the alley. The boy, surprisingly groomed well, has hair that extends almost to his neck. It sets on his head properly, but little spikes of hair stream down his forehead. He has darker skin, almost like Yang, though he has bright blue eyes. Dolma would have blushed if the boy had not stolen her bag.

"Get back here!" Dolma yells as she airbends herself upright again.

Dolma starts running very fast and almost catches up to the boy, but she then runs into Rumi and knocks both of them down. She yells for Yang to catch the thief. She and Rumi stumble to get back up, and Rumi is left with the animals this time. Dolma blasts herself onto the hood of a car. Yang, already on the other side, catches up to the boy. Dolma jumps and kicks a blast of air out, which propels her a short distance to the hood of the next car. She smiles as she gets the hang of it and bends the air to move her to the other side of the road. Meanwhile, Rumi guides Choju to the crosswalk as they wait for safe travels. She fidgets as Tako nibbles at the end of her hair.

Yang bends a rock and tosses it at the boy. The rock, a size good enough to knock someone down, slams into the back of the stranger's right leg. He falls over for a short period of time, but he continues running until he reaches a busy street. Yang follows him, and soon Dolma trails just behind until Yang reaches the street as well. Hundreds of people rush to work. The guy is gone. Dolma, distraught, punches Yang's arm hard. He yelps.

"Some Avatar you are," she mutters as Choju brings Rumi to the duo.

"Hey, I did my best. He's fast," Yang says defensively.

"Why don't we tell the police?" Rumi suggests.

The other two stare at her without emotion. Yang sighs and begins looking around for a map. For another two hours, the three friends search the town for a police station. Finally, however, they come across a very large building with several domes protruding from the top and windows scattered all around. Yang looks around and realizes they had already been through this area, but on the other side of the road.

"We wasted over an hour," he says. "Once we report the case, we're going to find a place to sleep."

. . .

"We need to speak to the Chief of Police right away!" Dolma says with a hand slammed on the receptionist's table.

"She's kind of busy, miss. Won't you tell me? Or one of our other several dozen officers?" the woman says. She is very plain; she has thin, dull glasses and a straight face.

"Not when my father's picture is in there. You get me the Chief or else I'll call the police on you!"

The woman's face turns frightened. "You're insane! Officer Beifong is very old and might not understand what's wro—"

A figure walks in a random doorway that leads into the lobby area. "Very old? You know, I've served this town for over fifty years and you call me _old_?"

A woman older than pretty much everyone Yang knows walks up to the counter in dark grey armor and an angry face.

"The name's Lin Beifong," she says, her hand extended.

Yang grabs her hand and attempts to shake it firmly. He had read somewhere that weak handshakes are signs of weakness. As she retracts her hand, he sees in her face that she is already judging him. Her face is wrinkled and her hair is pure white. She is slightly hunched over and has a hard look in her eyes.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, ma'am," Dolma starts, "I was walking to help a girl out in the alley and this guy pushed me down, took my bag, and ran off."

Lin Beifong digests the information and stares Dolma in the eyes. "I'll take the case—it's probably _his_ kid again."

"Whose kid?" Yang asks curiously.

At that time, another man comes in with similar metalbending armor. He walks up and sees Lin consulting with Yang's group. He, probably about forty, laughs heartily and leans against the doorframe.

"Is ol' Lin giving you a problem?" the man asks.

"Go away, Chin," the woman mutters through her fingers, which are covering her mouth as she nearly sits on the table.

"The woman just won't move on," the man jests. "She says she won't retire until she dies, not that she ever will. Can you believe she's ninety-nine?"

"I'm not dying until I'm good and ready!" the woman snaps, her fists clenched.

The man brings his hands up and waves them in the air. "Officer down! I repeat, officer down!"

Lin orders him out and metalbends his suit tighter so it cuts into his shoulders. He yelps as he walks away. Yang, amazed, sees the power in her metalbending and finds a sparkle in his eyes.

"So I will look into the matter, then," Lin says.

"Will you teach me how to metalbend?" Yang asks without thinking.

The other two glance over at him with uncertainty, though he looks up at the old woman in admiration. She analyzes his body features, the look in his eyes, and his overall likeability. She makes a quiet internal sound and bites her lip.

"You're a little scrawny," she chuckles. "You'd snap like a twig."

Yang feels embarrassment rise in his chest. His face turns red, specifically his ears, and he speaks up. "I figured you wouldn't be up to the challenge."

The woman glares at him for one long moment before flipping a hand into the air. "Ah, alright. You've got spunk, kid. There's something about you, something I've seen before. Anyway, if you're going to practice metalbending, then you need to be volunteering to help out with catching some baddies. Are you 'up to the challenge?'" she asks.

Yang smiles. "Definitely."

. . .

"What was that all about?" Dolma asks.

Yang directs Choju forward as they look for a hotel. "She's the one who has to teach me. She looked so strong to almost be a century old."

They stop at a street corner to take a small break. Choju eats a carrot hand-fed by Rumi, who had previously gotten some food cheap in one of the many marketplaces littering the city. Nearby, Yang spots a black payphone. He grabs a silver coin sporting the face of Avatar Korra and slips it into the machine. He gets the phone off of its hook and presses the small numbers on display in a small rectangle. Once he presses the needed digits, the phone starts to ring.

"Hello?" Yang replies automatically. "Hey, Dad, do you know of any hotels we could stay at?"

Rumi and Dolma glance at each other nervously. Not only is Yang wasting their money on phone calls, but they're losing time to find a hotel. Dolma sighs and thinks about the picture of her father that sits in one of the pockets of her bag.

"The Republic City Four Elements? Can you call and reserve us a room, then? …Okay, thanks! Love you, Dad!"

Yang hangs the phone up and walks back to the girls. He smiles and slicks his hair back. Sunlight is fading and a colder atmosphere sets in. He explains the situation with excitement in his voice.

"So I called Lu and he said there's this great hotel that loves him. He's calling them now for reservations."

Rumi perks up. "That is good news! Let's go on, then!"

Choju, tired, thumps with every step until Dolma spots the sign indicating their shelter. The building is primarily white with turquoise roofing and several small windows. It is very large; multiple stories extend this building into a seemingly endless height. Perhaps Yang can get a ground floor…closer to the _ground_.

Yang rides the elkephant into the lobby of the huge hotel and gets weird looks. He smiles at the disgusted faces and walks up to the receptionist. She first presents a face of shock, though she quickly puts on a fake politeness upon recognizing Yang's hair's resemblance to Lu's.

"Your room is on the sixth floor," she smiles. "Prince Lu has ordered you three the Junior Suite Deluxe package. Your, uh, _pets_, will be escorted to a holding facility."

"Why can't they stay with us? These animals have traveled with us for a long time."

"We have a no-pets policy into effect, not that anyone follows it."

Yang steals a glance toward Rumi and the girl nods. He takes up the receptionist's complete view and begins to ask her questions while Dolma and Rumi shove the elkephant into the elevator room. To their surprise, he fits when herded inside, and they pressed the white buttons that moved the room upwards appropriately.

"What animals?" Yang asks with a cheesy face. He moves from the woman's view when everyone is gone.

The woman rolls her eyes and groans. Yang snatches the key and goes into the elevator. Meanwhile, the woman goes through her records and files papers.

"Royals," she mutters.

. . .

After a nice long rest in a luxury hotel, and after room service sends food the group's way, Yang breaks off from his friends and wakes up early to go train with his metalbending instructor. He slips out of the covers and tiptoes over to the door. He looks at the hotel room. Three beds, a bathroom, a _living room_, and a mini refrigerator. Choju and Tako got to sleep on a rug, thankfully. He shuts the door and wakes Tako up. The sugar glider flies over to the bathroom and turns the sink on. It smiles at the stream of running water and sees the showerhead. Is there a way to make it work, too?

Dolma wakes up hearing the water and runs to the bathroom. Thinking it's Yang, she makes some sort of joke about his beauty. However, once she hears the squeaking of the rodent she's become enemies with, she opens the door to see a bathroom floor flooded from the sink and shower. She shrieks, calls for Yang, and realizes he ditched her with a wild animal—and her sugar glider, too.

. . .

Yang walks into the office and finds Lin leaning against the receptionist's desk asleep. He taps her shoulder to wake her up, but she only gives Yang a push on the forehead for making physical contact. The woman wears the exact same outfit as yesterday, but Yang doesn't judge. He just wants to metalbend.

"You're late," the woman mutters.

Yang glances at the clock. "I'm five minutes _early!_"

"My officers arrive fifteen minutes before the time at hand. By my understanding, you're late," she says sternly.

"Yes, ma'am," Yang says quickly. "What do you want me to do?"

"First," she says, "you need to chance into one of my officer's outfits and get ready to chase down a criminal."

Yang is pushed into a locker room with a bunch of older men. Intimidated, he takes off his shirt and pants in the corner and attempts to slip on the suit, though it does not stick. He keeps trying until some of the other men notice him.

One man, completely disrobed of his metalbending gear, walks over to Yang. He smiles and, noticing Yang's immediate shutdown, puts his hands up in the air innocently. He gets his own metalbending suit and lies it on a bench. He focuses on it and metalbends the entire outfit on him. Clicking can be heard as the different parts come together.

Yang tries it and gets the outfit on himself the first time. He hears the clicks and sees it compact on his body. The man, surprised, gives a nod of approval and walks away. Yang, though, feels exceedingly overweight with this heavy gear on. He walks out of the locker room and goes back over to Lin.

"Great," she says. "Now I want you to follow me as we get in my police car."

. . .

Rumi and Dolma move on from the necklace stand and continue their daytime shopping with some of their share of Yang's cash. The two haven't gotten some time alone in a while, so it is refreshing for the girls to bond a bit while Yang leaves to do whatever he does. Dolma grabs a cheap orange hat with a red feather. She puts it on her head and twists it around fashionably, causing Rumi to laugh. Dolma soon stops her laughing upon realizing the hat reminds her of her airbending robes.

Rumi, on the other hand, only buys a small bag of metal marbles. Dolma calls her purchase weird, but Rumi shrugs and keeps the bag of marbles in her bag as they walk.

"We need to do this more often," Dolma laughs.

"Definitely. It's not every day we get a break from life!" Rumi cheers.

A noise comes from beside them. As if in slow motion, Dolma turns around to see what the sound is—though Rumi hears nothing. Dolma moves her head toward the sound, but it's already too late. The figure darts in front of her and takes her orange hat. She is knocked back by the sudden change of events and just barely notices the thief's face: it's the one from before. Rumi blasts off with her airbending and creates a giant ball of air that serves as a scooter. She glides down the street and follows the boy within a close distance. Rumi begins running and helplessly loses track of Dolma in the crowd. However, she keeps on and shouts for someone to call the police.

. . .

_Meanwhile_

Room service walks back into the hotel room upon request. A woman delivers several apples, carrots, and berries and sets them down on one of the beds. She walks over and notices a very peculiar sight. A giant elkephant lies on the ground with a masseuse pounding on his back. A small sugar glider is flying around the room and searching for food. The woman is shocked and walks to the doorway of the room.

"What-what's going on?" she asks.

"I don't know, but I'm getting paid by the hour," the man, donning a very fashionable mustache, smiles.

. . .

"_Officer Lin, we're getting reports of a robbery and several disturbances in the downtown—near the portals._"

"Got it, Chin, thanks," she says. "Yang, are you ready to bust your first criminals?"

The boy, who uncomfortably wears the huge armor, nods anxiously. He needs some action to save him from this embarrassment.

"You know, I had an almost-kid once. He was a good cop, but I'm glad I didn't ever raise him. He seemed like _quite_ the drama queen," she says spontaneously. She catches Yang's stare and throws a hand into the air. "What? I'm making conversation. You're making it awkward."

The car, a standard black-and-white car with police lights, drives onward toward a beam in the sky. Yang notices a beam of yellow extending from the ground and up through the clouds. He assumes it's the spirit portal, though he has no idea what it's about. As the car gets closer, he sees the light better and notes its beauty.

"This boy, his name's Hiroshi. Poor kid has rich parents that show him no love, so I guess he steals for the thrill," Lin explains.

"What do his parents do?" Yang asks.

"Ha! You really are new here. His father's president of Varrick Global Industries and his mother's president of Sato Industries. He's a kid born into extreme wealth. They split up, though, a few years ago. They compete for his love through buying gifts."

"I'd be okay with that," Yang accidentally blurts.

"Wouldn't we all? Well, guess not," Lin says.

The car screeches to a stop and Lin steps out. She beckons for Yang to come along.

"Now, I want you to use this metal cable you have on your side and imagine shooting it at one of the little hooks that protrude from buildings. These houses are made sturdy enough so we can use them in capturing criminals. There are little hooks on the buildings and, well, ledges, too. Imagine yourself shooting it at the hooks and use the swinging to your advantage. Don't screw up, kid. I like your energy. I'll be right behind you," she says.

. . .

Dolma blasts air at the figure in front and knocks him off his feet. He quickly gets up and continues sprinting, but the airbender continues her airbending to the point where her arms ache. She notices Rumi has quit chasing after her—possibly due to their extended travel.

Dolma blasts more air and misses, but she closes in on the boy. She lifts up her hand to deliver one last blast until…

Somewhere from behind, a metal cable snatches onto her hand. She is yanked back and loses her air ball. She slams against the ground and skids a ways. The cable is retracted and Dolma finds herself captured by the older woman from before.

"Yang," the woman calls, "get him before he goes in the spirit portal!"

Dolma sees Yang metalbending cables into the little snares placed on the buildings and appears comparable to a monkey swinging from branch to branch. Dolma snickers at this remark, but Lin looks down on her harshly.

"What were you doing this time?"

"Chasing the criminal," Dolma mutters.

"Let the police handle it, girl. Who is your mother?"

"Jinora," Dolma says matter-of-factly.

"Dang, is the entire past blowing up in my face? First I mention Mako and now Jinora's in the picture. What is it about you hooligans?"

Meanwhile, Yang slings one of his cables onto the boy's leg just as he jumps in the spirit portal. Yang is yanked in and he yelps as he loses track of the human world. All he sees is yellow for a brief moment and thinks about the spirit world.

The Spirit World was a big topic back in airbending school. There were several attempts at field trips, but Republic City never authorized one and the poles were too cold to visit. This will be Yang's first entrance into the mystical world where spirits flourish instead of humans. He imagines the beautiful lands described in the ancient texts and remembers the many lectures Jinora would explain about the place. Obviously he has seen spirits, but never in their own domain. He feels special, privileged, that he will get to see it now. Yang is dragged through the portal and slams onto the ground. He stands up and looks around at the scenery he's only dreamed of seeing.

Houses litter a used-to-be meadow. Several people walk about and pick the flowers, and some kids stomp on them. Twisted trees have been uprooted and thrown to rot. Yang looks around as the horror sets in: humanity is settling and destroying the Spirit World's purity. Small factories have been put up in the distance, presumably to make paper, and have smoke billowing out into the atmosphere of the place. Spirits seem to avoid this section of their world, but who could blame them? Yang feels a surge of anger shiver up his spine.

"You hate it, too?" the strange thief asks, much to Yang's surprise.

"What?"

"They've ruined this place. I told my parents to do something about it, but they only endorsed the option and began manufacturing the buildings. My grandmother wouldn't have wanted this at all," he says coldly.

"Who's your grandma?" Yang asks.

"That's none of your business!" the teen claims.

Yang watches as he pulls out a cylinder wrapped in leather. Confused, Yang watches him open a canteen of water. The boy bends the water into the cylinder and freezes it into a giant ice spear with a leather center to hold it with. Yang is amazed by the design but barely dodges a stab in time.

"Your name's Hiroshi?" Yang asks.

"So what?" Hiroshi demands.

The waterbender spins the ice spear fast enough to look like a circle in front of it. As Yang metalbends a cable, it is deflected by the spear. Hiroshi smiles at Yang's failure.

"Metalbending not working? Try earth," he suggests.

Yang kicks his right foot out and spins it toward Hiroshi, resulting in a rock heading straight for his stomach. The teen dodges the rock and slams Yang with the spear. Yang falls to the ground and finds himself staring at the point of the ice spear.

"Never stood a chance," Hiroshi smiles.

Meanwhile, by the spirit portal, Lin and Dolma watch the fighting.

"Shouldn't we do something?" the girl asks desperately.

"No, this is an evenly-matched battle. Yang is building up the attack as we speak," Lin says.

"How do you know?" says an exhausted Rumi as she exits the portal.

"I know my officers—even if they've only been on the force a few hours."

Yang stares at the spear's point and thrusts a hand at the spear and exhales a flamethrower-esque blast of fire that melts the water from the spear and knocks Hiroshi back. With both of them surprised, Yang lunges for the leather weapon and grabs it. Hiroshi, still shocked from the bending, gets captured by the cables of Lin's metalbending gear.

"Who are you—some kind of freak?!" the guy gasps.

Yang looks nervously as Lin walks up with an expression meaning she saw what happened. Dolma and Rumi nervously walk with her.

"Good work. I don't think you were looking for metalbending trainer, were you?"

Yang sighs in relief. She didn't see. "To be honest, I picked up on metalbending on my own. I think I understand it more than I'm giving myself credit for," he says.

"I couldn't agree more. However, I still want you to do a follow-up lesson tomorrow. I have another skill I want to show you," she smiles.

Yang nods. They take Hiroshi and exit the Spirit World. Yang looks back at the destruction and sees Dolma's face exhibiting the same feelings as his.

"They've ruined it," she whispers.

"I know," Yang agrees. "It's not like the pictures at all."

Lin hears the whispers and exhales through her nose. "Talking about the Spirit World colonization?"

Yang and Dolma tense up. They fear what Lin might say over their unhappiness. However, Lin soon nods and turns hard.

"When Avatar Korra was killed, someone on the inside had the idea to go against her wishes and expand into the Spirit World. Republic City has faced extreme overpopulation, so their actions aren't necessarily for greed. It's more of a morally gray decision that is justified in some ways and seems illegal in others."

"If Avatar Korra didn't want the Spirit World taken over, then you feel the same, right?" Yang says nervously.

"Of course! I've had to make a mini sector of the police force move to the Spirit World. Apparently they aren't doing a very good job, but…the Spirit World is a mysterious place. I can't change anything, and I especially won't in my old age. I'm—I'm dying, I can feel it in my bones, but I will die fighting for balance in my city," the old woman smiles.

"My parents are stupid," the tied-up Hiroshi says. "I told them to leave the spirits alone. Earthbend an island or something and live there. My mother…she promised both me and my grandmother that she would protect the spirit world, but she hasn't."

"Who is your grandmother?" Yang insists.

"Ugh, it's complicated," Hiroshi sighs.

"His grandmother's Avatar Korra," Lin explains.

Yang feels the world center its spotlight on him. Everything seems so far away. Did she just say _Korra?_

"I didn't get to know her," Hiroshi says, "but they did. They know how she's saved the world, but they don't care."

The five people walk into the spirit portal and soon exit back into Republic City. Lin lets the cables withdraw themselves into her gear and sets Hiroshi free. He feels his wrists and stands up. He's a few inches taller than Yang, which really bothers him for some reason.

"Now go on, Hiroshi, before I call your mother. You need to stop entertaining yourself with tourists."

"Thank you, Lin. I'll have my father pay for the damages," he says.

"You sure will!"

Hiroshi leaves the group and exposes his backpack—one that looks exactly like Dolma's. Dolma runs up and rips the bag right off his shoulders, exposing his blue water tribe shirt's back. She starts asking the teen questions—something that irritates Yang to no end. Rumi tells Yang to join them and waves goodbye to Lin. Yang tells her he needs to change, but he'll be back.

. . .

Yang walks out of the changing room in his green T-shirt and navy pants. He waves bye to Lin and she makes him wait for a second.

"I'm looking forward to giving you some more bending lessons," she says.

"Thank you, Lin, I really appreciate it."

"I don't normally just make someone my protégé, but I think we both know you aren't the average earthbender. I want to give you this," she says as she hands him a small card with a name and address on it. "He is a really good firebender and will teach you the fundamental basics of it all."

Yang begins sweating. "Can you, uh, keep this a secret until appropriate?"

"Of course I can, _Avatar Yang_. You aren't ready to reveal yourself to the public—I can tell. When you are, though, I will back you one hundred percent. I owe your previous life that, and probably much more as well. Your secret is safe with me, the best earthbender alive since Toph Beifong. They're going to have to rip the secret out of my dying soul," she says reassuringly, but she goes a little too far.

Yang's eyes are large. "Uh, thanks. See you later!"

Yang slips out of the office and begins walking over to where he sees Rumi waiting. He glances at the business card given to him and reads the name out loud.

"_Mako, firebending master and prior detective,"_ he reads. "Hm, I wonder who this 'Mako' is?"

. . .

Rumi guides Yang over to where Dolma had gone previously. She opens the door to the huge building labeled "Varrick Industries" and guides Yang in. They sneak into an elevator, avoiding all staff on the floor, and Rumi presses the room number for the elevator to guide them.

They go up several stories in silence, but Rumi soon breaks it.

"Are secrets from friends okay?" Rumi asks quietly.

"Secrets? Yeah, of course. We can't tell anyone I'm the Avatar, or at least that I'm probably the Avatar. I need to connect to Avatar Korra before I believe in anything. A few elements and raw power isn't enough," Yang says self-centeredly.

"Uh, okay, never mind," Rumi says.

"Why?"

The elevator goes _ding! _as they arrive at the right floor. Rumi and Yang walk over and find a wall made of glass and two large couches inside. It appears to be a business meeting. Yang makes a puzzled face, but Rumi sighs and gets his attention. Yang goes from the room to her face.

"Dolma says you're going to want to see this," Rumi insists.

"See what?"

Hiroshi and Dolma sit on the couch closer to Yang's view so that the back of their heads are visible. Beside them sits an older person, although not an _old_ one—probably Hiroshi's father. He cannot see the other three people on the other couch, however he can hear everything.

"You're just in time to see your ol' man close a deal!" the man says with gusto.

"A deal on what?"

"A deal on what? A deal on what! This isn't any old deal, Hiroshi! This isn't when I had your mother rub stones on my feet to prevent calluses—which, be careful, are hereditary! This is about the cash we're going to get from helping my good friend Li Tang develop more housing!"

Hiroshi's father has tan skin, much like his child, and a thin, whiskery mustache. He wears small, circle-framed glasses and has a sharp-pointed chin. His hair is wild and brown.

"Varrick, your father is a very close friend to President Maiko and myself. Even in old age, he remains a dear personal connection. We are pleased to work with his successor," a familiar voice, presumably Li Tang's, says from the other couch.

"Dad was bright, but he's no match for my moneymaking! You know he named each of his three sons Varrick? I'm the youngest but the most ambitious. If you don't have any ambition, what do you have?"

"A regular life?" Hiroshi grumbles.

"No-ho-ho! You have a boring life! Life is boring when you aren't succeeding," he explains.

"Can we get to the point of this?" a male voice demands from beside Li Tang.

"I think the deal has already been made," his boss says kindly.

"Ya darn-tootin'!" The father grabs a stack of papers and a pen and has Li Tang sign in several different blank lines.

When Dolma and Hiroshi stand up to exit, Yang catches a glance at the third person. When he does, he suddenly busts through the door and stands right in between his friends and the adults. Rumi follows. Before Yang makes it over to the other person, Rumi meets up with Dolma.

"Why'd you even come in here?"

"Varrick said he felt weird with that firebender guy beside Li Tang and wanted a young girl to keep him tame," Dolma says with confusion.

"That's…that's weird," Rumi says.

Yang stares at the woman, a young adult in her early twenties, and has her stare at him. They both pause.

"Soma?" he says in disbelief.

"Yang?" she responds in amazement.

"You two know each other?" Rumi says.

"Friends of yours, Soma?" Li Tang asks sweetly.

Dolma shifts uncomfortably "She's—"

Yang feels like he's about to sneeze. He feels his nose begin to sneeze, but it suddenly goes away. "She's my sister," he says. His tongue feels foreign when the words roll out of his mouth and into the open. "Soma's my sister."


	7. Chapter 7: Family Ties

The young woman brushes back her short, brown hair and gets up gently. She bows and dismisses herself from the First Lady's meeting. She grabs Yang's wrist and rushes him out of the office room. Yang winces as his bones are tested with a great amount of pressure.

"You're _hurting_ me!" he yelps.

"Good," Soma says as she closes the meeting room's door. She looks at her little brother and smiles. "What the flameo are you doing here in Republic City? Shouldn't you be airbending?"

"Not yet," Yang says quietly.

"What?"

"It's complicated, Soma, you see—_wait_! What are _you _doing here?" he retorts.

Soma perks up at the opportunity to brag. "After graduating Airbending Academy, I went on with my spiritual quest to find myself. Well, by accident, I found myself in a giant city filled with criminals and garbage. I wrote a letter saying I had a job and, well, my first job was washing dishes. Not too long ago, I was offered a job by Mrs. Li Tang. I monitor her tea business affairs and help her products reach the market in time. I'm one of her highest-ranked assistants!"

"I'm happy you found a place to work at, but why aren't you back at the temple?"

Soma wrinkles her thin nose and looks off. "I wasn't meant for temple work. I need to be in the real world. Now what about you? Are you still being called a "Stiff" or have they finally stopped?"

Yang breathes in deeply and prepares for a very long speech about being the Avatar and having to get ready and master all of the elements and try to save the world and manage to keep some sort of balance between spirits and humans and keep peace between the nations and make sure that corruption is destroyed as much as possible and that the Avatar spirit continues on, but all he could say was: "I can earthbend now."

Soma gasps out loud and hugs her little brother. Embarrassed by his past failures, Soma can finally tell her friends that her brother wasn't a misfit. "That's great news!" she says. "How is training going?"

"Oh, I'm done with training. I've mastered Earth so far," he explains.

"So far? Hate to break it to you, Yang, but it's one element per person. Keep trying, though, maybe Raava will hear you," she chuckles.

The door between them and the meeting is thrown open and an angry Hiroshi walks out in anger. Behind him, Dolma sneaks by and readies herself to confront him. Rumi slips out after them and awkwardly stands by Yang and his older sister.

"Metal," Yang quickly says. "I still have to master metalbending."

Soma emits a sound of comprehension. "That makes sense. Anyway, Mrs. Li Tang's tea shop is the biggest in Republic City and probably out of all the other nations as well. She is going to rake in the money when she expands. Guess who gets a portion of the cash? I feel spiritually enlightened just thinking about it!" she smiles.

"Soma, spiritual enlightenment has nothing to do with money. There's a reason why you haven't earned your tattoos," Yang advises.

"Coming from a boy who plays in the dirt, that information seems useless. If you came here to fight, you can leave," she says and, with a quick flip of the air, returns in front of the door and walks back in the meeting.

Yang stands, limp, in front of the door as the woman sits back on her couch. He loosens his shoulders and exhales through his nose. He feels Rumi's hand clasp onto his left arm and the two of them walk down the stairs alone. They eventually make it out of the building and head for home.

. . .

Hiroshi stumbles outside and walks briskly across a crosswalk. Behind him, he can hear the small steps of the thin airbender jogging behind him. He hastens his pace until he gets stopped at the next crosswalk. The boy pushes his hair back from his face and looks at the nosy girl. She has a thin face, probably due to her airbender diet. She has long, thin brown hair and eyes that get deeper and deeper the more he looks into them. He shakes her off his mind and wait for the little red hand to turn green.

Dolma catches up to him. The girl stops by him, holds onto her knees, and catches her breath. Hiroshi cracks a smile at her distraught face, but he loses any emotion when she looks up at him. She narrows here eyes and analyzes him harshly.

"If your father is a business tycoon, or whatever he is, why are you reduced to stealing?" she asks demandingly.

The light turns into a green person walking, so Hiroshi starts back up again. Dolma steps after him and eventually meets back up with him at the corner of two busy streets. She gets in front of him and begins speaking again.

"I want answers. You stole my stuff and I want to know why," she says.

As he walks past her, she puts a hand on his shoulder and turns him around. He slaps her hand away with a quick chop and Dolma's face turns into complete anger. The girl pops a knuckle and punches Hiroshi in the cheek, knocking him onto the sidewalk and causing spectators to run off in horror. Dolma looks at her bleeding hand and frowns. Hiroshi, his cheek now swollen and slowly turning purple, props himself up on his elbows and looks the girl over expressionlessly.

"Did you just punch me?" he gasps.

"I'll do it again if you touch me like that," she says, her arms in a fighting position.

Hiroshi looks at this stranger in both curiosity and admiration. He gets up, feels of his face's tenderness, and smiles weakly. The smile obviously hurt his left side because of the bruising, but he couldn't help himself.

"What's wrong with you?" she asks with disgust.

"I've never seen a girl be physical," he says, still smiling.

"Really? Sexist jerks should get punched more often, then," she says.

Hiroshi stands up with slight difficulty and opens a canteen connected at his waste. The teen waterbends a small amount of the liquid on his face. Dolma watches in awe as his bruises and scrapes soon fade away and the swelling dies down. His face clears up and he's back to normal. Hiroshi clears his throat and enjoys the amazement in Dolma's eyes.

"You're a healer," she whispers.

"Let me give a formal introduction. I'm Hiroshi Sato, son of Varrick, CEO of Varrick Industries. Well—okay, so my grandfather named everyone different but called them all Varrick. His name is Varrick, and he liked it so much, and….you know what, let's just call him Varrick. Anyway, my mother's name is Kasumi Sato, and she's the daughter of Avatar Korra and Asami Sato, but they needed help and had this man named Mako—"

"Let's skip the introduction and get to the explanations," she advises.

Hiroshi nods. "My parents run Varrick and Future Industries. I know what you're thinking—best of both worlds, right? To have two of the most powerful people in the world as your parents…it seems unrealistic."

"So you can get everything you want, yet you steal?"

"Yep," he says.

"So you do it to prove your hereditary power?" she asks.

Hiroshi shakes his head and stares at the ground. "I have been pampered by my parents for years. I steal as an act of rebellion, a way to get them to notice me as more than just some sort of waste of money. My father thinks women are useless sense the divorce and blocks me off from having friends, forcing me to learn business moves and understanding politics. My mother only introduces me to feeble, needy girls to make me feel more important. I've never met someone so tough," he says.

Dolma pauses for a moment and punches Hiroshi's arm. "They don't get tougher than me," she smiles.

She convinces the reluctant Hiroshi to join her on her way to the Four Elements hotel. The two of them walk side by side and stroll back across the street.

. . .

Yang and Rumi go by the hotel and Yang drops a small slip of paper. He picks it up and remembers Mako the firebender. He guides Rumi beyond the hotel and decides to visit this master. They walk through the more civilized side of the city and come across a large building that matches the address on the card. The ceiling looks like a classic design with red tiles. The exterior of the home is made of finely-crafted stone.

Yang knocks on the door and finds it slightly ajar. He glances back at Rumi, who raises her shoulders into a shrug. They step in the building and begin to look around. They split up to search for the older man. As Yang leaves Rumi in the living room, he decides to check out one of the bedrooms.

He walks inside to find deep red carpeting. He marvels at the beauty of the black flame design engraved on the pattern. He looks up from the rug and finds a comfortable bed covered in a red comforter and fluffy clouds for pillows. Around the walls of the great room, however, are millions of newspaper clippings pegged to boards. Yang looks at the clippings and finds one trait similar in all of them: conspiracy theories for President Maiko. Yang scratches his head and looks at headlines such as "President Maiko Making Millions After Spirit World Destruction" and "What's Happening to the Spirits? Ask Your President!"

In a room beside him, Rumi catches her eye on a picture frame with two divided sides. On the right side is a picture of a young man with a red scarf with both of his arms around one woman, who Rumi recognizes as Avatar Korra, and another with darker hair that she didn't know. In the picture, a little girl stands close to Korra—obviously her daughter. However, in the left picture in the frame, Rumi sees the man in a scarf again—but with a third woman, a woman with long, fiery red hair stands with her head leaning against him and a small baby cradled in her arms. The baby is much younger than Korra's child.

Rumi hears something and lays the frame back where she found out. She calls out quietly for some sort of response, but she hears nothing.

. . .

"And this," Dolma says, gripping the doorknob, "is our humble abode!"

She and Hiroshi look inside the hotel room and see a very interesting spectacle. Choju is lying on his back getting a nice massage, both on his back and trunk, by some weird large man that seems to enjoy doing it. Tako is being fed grapes which, after ingesting each one, expands his belly even more. The maids that are catering to the animals look up and smile at Hiroshi and Dolma.

"Do you want some grapes?" asks one.

"Uh, no thanks?" Dolma replies.

"What about a massage?" the other persists.

Choju lets out a squeal from its trunk as if approving the treatment, but both of them shake their heads and leave the hotel room. Dolma shuts the door behind her.

"Does that happen a lot?" Hiroshi says with a smirk.

"I honestly don't know anymore," Dolma says nervously.

They walk back outside the hotel room and hear an announcement through the speakers that lie hidden within the city. They dictate President Maiko's meeting happening in half an hour. The voice sounds mechanical and creepy, but Dolma sees Hiroshi is indifferent about the voice. He seems slightly interested by the meeting.

"My mother wanted me to go to the meeting for her," he says.

"What for?"

"President Maiko and his wife are good friends with my parents, so they want me to get on his good side. We're supposed to hear something interesting about the projects going on," he explains. "As long as he doesn't bother the Spirit World, I'm okay."

He grabs her by the hand, causing her to blush slightly, and drags her across the street and slowly to where the meeting is going to take place. Dolma's eyes grow wide as she realizes she hasn't seen her friends in a while. They turn back to normal and she shrugs off the worry. After all, Yang's the Avatar.

. . .

Yang leaves out the back door and explores the outside. He looks in the shed, glances through the garden, and climbs the trees. Nothing. He sighs and turns back to the house. The back door shuts again. Yang runs over to see a woman with red hair holding a knife to Rumi's throat. The knife's blade is sharp and curved, and Rumi's gulping makes it closer to breaking the skin.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! We don't mean harm," Yang says quickly.

"Why are you here?" the woman barks.

Yang sees in her eyes a sorrowful rage; he sees some sort of hesitance and reluctance that makes him think something is terribly wrong. He looks at Rumi. She nods slightly for him to speak—as if he had a choice.

"I'm here for Mako," he says. "I need to be taught firebending."

The woman's grey eyes narrow at his comment. "My father is dead," she says slowly. "Why are you really here?"

Yang feels his chest sink upon hearing the comment. His firebending master is dead?! He fights back tears and looks at her in the face. "Please don't hurt her. I came here because I need to be taught firebending."

She tugs Rumi's hair back and sets the knife on his friend's neck. Yang screams out, causing birds to fly out of trees and into the setting sun, and raises a hand up at her. He balls his hand into a fist and causes her metal knife to crunch up in a similar fashion. The woman throws Rumi to the ground and stares at the boy with anger.

"So some metalbending snot has come to kill me as well?" she asks herself. "I'll just have to see about that."

Yang bends two rocks from the ground and holds them in his hands. He keeps them at his sides to show he means no harm. He sighs. "I'm the Avatar. At least, that's what people are telling me," he says.

"Pathetic. The Avatar cycle was destroyed. Avatar Korra was the last one," she says.

"Okay, then, watch," Yang instructs. He drops the rocks and closes his eyes. Yang focuses all of his energy into his fist and punches up in the air, which emits a small but visible flame.

Everyone watches the flame burst into the sky. Yang smiles at the success and looks at Mako's daughter's face. Instead of a face of anger, she now has an interested expression on.

"Fight me," she says.

Yang backs away just as she blasts a fistful of fire into him. Yang is knocked back, but he earthbends himself into the sky. He bends a large boulder from the ground and tosses it at the woman, who slides under it in time and lands sideways on one hand and two knees. She uses her posture to lash a leg out and create a slash of fire in the air. Yang bends dirt up to dissipate the fire and he lands hard on the ground, causing a mini tremor. The mystery woman loses her balance but soon recovers.

Meanwhile, Rumi leans against the house and watches the battle take place. She feels of her headband and sighs in relief that she's still alive.

Yang tosses a large stone at her and she ducks under it. She punches a huge flame that knocks Yang back. He gets up and strikes upward in the air and causes a pillar of dirt to rise out of the ground and hit her hard. She lands on her feet and jumps over an incoming boulder. She then puts a few fingers together and creates electricity at her fingertips. She unleashes the lightning at Yang and he narrowly dodges the attack, but the blast knocks him into a tree and hurts his shoulder. He sits against the trunk in horror as the woman walks up with electricity flickering in her hand.

"Game's over; you lose. Thanks for playing," she teases.

"Do you believe me now?" Yang asks.

The woman's face scrunches up in puzzlement and eventual the electricity disappears. Yang audibly exhales as she helps him off the ground. He bends the dirt off his clothes and throws it into the grass. Rumi runs over and joins her friend as they re-confront the unknown woman. She nods slowly to herself and appears lighter in the face.

"Yes," she says. "Come in."

. . .

Yang and Rumi sit next to each other on one of the two red couches in the living room. With the house lit up and lively again, it seems to be something completely new to their eyes. The woman brings them tea and sits down in a chair adjacent to them. She takes a sip from her white porcelain cup and smiles.

"My father would be so proud to see the Avatar still cycling. When Korra passed and one wasn't found, he went into a deep depression," she says as she sets the cup down on the table. "Let me explain myself. My name is Asuka. I've been a firebending master for nearly twenty years and have trained some of the best Fire Nation people in the world," she gloats.

"Wow," Rumi says politely.

"So how did your dad die?" Yang asks bluntly, resulting in Rumi jabbing him with her elbow. "Err, may he rest in peace?" he whimpers.

"My father died less than a few days ago. His body was scrunched up and his skin pruned all over. It was pitiful. He wasn't too old, but for some reason he went from slightly wrinkly skin to fatal water balances. His body reminded me of an apple core. It was devastating for me," she says. "Now I'm on my own."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Rumi says solemnly.

"Yeah, for him to just die that da—OW!" Yang says as he experiences another jab.

"The Avatar always starts out with some sort of flaw," Asuka smiles. "So tell me about yourself."

Yang breathes in deeply and prepares to spit out a million different things to say. Instead, though, he finds only a few sentences' worth of information that seems relevant to his story so far.

"My name is Yang. I was born an earthbender and raised by airbenders. I was always terrible at everything air, but now I'm finding myself changing rapidly within the past year. I've gotten stronger—more patient, more defensive. Now that I've mastered earth, fire is next on my agenda. It would be an honor to serve under you, Sifu Asuka," Yang says, stands up, and bows.

Asuka raises her eyebrows at the act of respect. "Avatars do learn fast! Well, Avatar Yang, looks like you're going to master your second element. What about you, girl? Do you bend an element?"

Rumi blushes and stares at the carpet. "No, I can't bend anything no matter how hard I try," she says.

"Ah, bending isn't everything."

Asuka beckons Yang and Rumi to follow her to the bedroom with all of the news clippings. She takes one down about President Maiko's bowling score and glares at his existence. "I need your help, Yang," she says.

"What?"

"My occupation is in journalism—I work for _The Republic_, a paper that is widely circulated here in the heart of the Republic Nation. I have been privately researching President Maiko's history for the past four years, and I've been trying to find evidence of spirit cruelty in his destruction of the Spirit World. I've seen his workers kill a spirit with their bending—treacherous work—and harvest its energy to power their factories and buildings. President Maiko is trying to take over the Spirit World from the inside. With the energy and land mass, he will be unstoppable. I just need proof," she says, her slightly aged face showing a glow of youth in her conspiracy.

"So you want me to spy on the president and, when I have the evidence, fight him?" Yang asks dumbly.

"Yes, pretty much. In exchange, you will master your firebending."

Yang looks at Rumi and nods. "I'll do it."


	8. Chapter 8: The Dream

He ducks last second and dodges a fireball. He leaps forward, hands making contact with the ground first, and jumps back upright. Yang learns to attack and defend against fire attacks fast. The raw power in these attacks require a lot of concentration, so beads of sweat drip down from the ends of his forked brown hair and land on his nose and shirt. Yang barely misses an attack and falls flat on his chest. He hops up on his feet when another blast comes his way.

He practices with his firebending teacher right outside her home—right where Rumi was just threatened the day before. Several trees litter the acre-long backyard. A small barn in the back holds a few storage items and a Sato

Sifu Asuka coordinates her hands and allows the energy to flow through her chi paths. She creates a blast of fire that swarms to Yang's location like an angry nest of bees. The fire almost wants to devour him in its greedy rage of chaos. Yang breathes in and then charges against the fire. He moves his hands in a circular motion and disbands the flames' connection long enough to allow his entrance through the fire.

He focuses on his teacher's agility and forms two fists aimed at her feet. He throws a punch toward her and unleashes a short, powerful blast of fire at her. The other fist moves similarly and attempts to counter her movement from the first flame. Asuka dances away from the attacks and feels impressed by Yang's accomplishments.

"Pro-bending?" she asks intuitively.

"I was taught by your uncle," Yang says. "He and Mako were competitors in the pro-bending arena decades ago."

"I know my father's past. I just didn't know that you mimicked your teacher's pro-bending technique," she sighs.

Asuka begins to do a cartwheel and has a fiery trail follow her feet as she continues. She spins and throws the flame at Yang, but he ducks down again and dodges the attack. He grabs her foot upon dismount, but Yang falls back effortlessly by a fire punch of Asuka's own. Yang slams into a tree from the unsuspected blast and groans in pain.

Rumi, who has been watching from the background, claps loudly upon Yang's decent performance with firebending. As she recovers from the battling, Sifu Asuka yells out compliments and admiration for the Avatar's performance.

"Dad would be so happy that I've helped the Avatar," she says.

"Yeah," Yang trails off.

"What's wrong, kid?"

Yang runs his fingers through his hair and gets up from the ground. He wipes his hands on his green Earth Kingdom shirt, sees the wetness from practice, and becomes slightly embarrassed by the excretion. He gets the end of his shirt and wipes his forehead.

"I guess I don't know how to be an Avatar. I can bend, but I can't do much else," he says.

"I'm going to do my best to lead you in the right direction," Asuka smiles. "And I think that direction involves taking down the president."

Yang frowns slightly and wonders if that idea is the only one in her head. "To be honest, I wish Avatar Korra could give me some insight on whatever shady business is going on. Korra had Aang's help, right?"

"Momentarily, but he only showed her flashbacks during her first confrontation with evil."

"So what do you think I should do, then?" he asks.

Asuka pushes back a few loose strands of her fiery hair and bites the tip of her upper lip. She pauses a moment and then snaps her fingers in inspiration.

"Sleep on it. You aren't exactly spiritual yet, so you just need to dream. Maybe you'll dream something up?" She looks at a clock on the outside door and coughs. "I have to go write a news column, so training will have to resume later. Good work today, Yang!"

. . .

Late at night, Yang and Rumi walk up the steps to their hotel door and Yang turns the bronze knob inward to open the door. When the door swings open, Yang expects to see Dolma all cuddled up in one of the side beds, but he finds nothing. Tako is missing, Dolma is nowhere to be found, and the room is completely spotless. Choju, however, walks out the bathroom and unleashes a stream of water that flies all over the hotel beds. Yang tries to ignore the fact that it's probably toilet water.

"Did Dolma just rob us?" he asks, but his friend eventually shakes her head.

Rumi walks over to the bed and finds a white sheet of paper with text scrawled on it. She gets her fingers to rub her tired eyes and begins to read it aloud:

_Went to Hiroshi's with Tako and all of our luggage. Take Choju to Varrick's Mansions that's near the Police Department and Hiroshi will give you a tour around the house! We can't say no to free housing, right?_

_-Dolma_

Yang wipes his warm forehead and thinks about the decision. Should they really move into the house of some guy who stole from Dolma just the day before? Even so, what if it's some sort of trap?

"I don't like it," he finally says.

"You have to admit that it's at least a permanent home. Hiroshi's dad is one of the richest in the nation," Rumi says convincingly.

"Oh, so you're on her side, too?"

"Side? No, I'm just saying…it's a lot cheaper if we're getting a free upgrade. Besides, she seems to like Hiroshi. Are you questioning her judgment?"

Yang sighs and unfolds the edge of his green Earth Kingdom shirt. He messes with the seam of the bottom and then looks back up at Rumi. Her Fire Nation descent comes with a fiery personality and compassion that gives her strength. He wishes he could have that strength, at least as a motivation for combat, and he wonders if the lack of drive is what makes his firebending weak right now. Rumi and Dolma have such clear goals, such clear minds. He, on the other hand, is constantly worried that he's doing the wrong thing or slipping up and destroying his secret. He's so indecisive it hurts.

"No, you guys are right. I don't like it, though," he decides.

. . .

"Thank you for your hospitality," the tired Rumi says as Hiroshi opens the door. She gazes on his emotionless expression and slightly compresses her eyebrows against her face.

"It's no problem. Dolma asked if you could come and we have a million rooms in this giant waste of money," he says with distaste.

Yang, slightly farther back, dismounts Choju and has a servant take his trusted pal elsewhere. He gazes at the house, a white-based brick building with a beautiful blue-tiled roof that perfectly suits a family of waterbenders. Columns of white stretch from the top all the way to the front door of the house, with at least two dozen windows overlooking the view of the city through the front of the house alone. Beside the Police Department, this building looks much more grand. Yang smiles weakly at the satisfaction of his home and steps up the mini sets of stairs to walk over to Rumi's location.

"We appreciate it," she says again.

"That's cool. Now, let me give you a small tour," Dolma says from behind her friend.

"Oh?" replies a surprised Yang.

The two visitors are led through the living room, which looks much more impressive than Lu's entrance, but Yang still feels more at home with his father's comfortable couches by the fireplace.

"So this is the living room," she begins. "But come on, we need to get going to our bedroom soon. It's getting late."

"Does your, uh, dad know about this, Hiroshi?"Yang asks suspiciously.

Hiroshi shakes his loose hair back and forth. "He'll be cool with it. He's _always_ cool with it…"

"…Right," Yang says awkwardly.

As Dolma keeps yapping about the house, Yang suddenly notices a beautiful blue necklace framed against the wall of the hallway leading into whatever room Dolma is about to show everyone. It is designed with small, elegant waves on its pendant. A caption beside the necklace reads: "Korra Betrothal Necklace." Yang puts his fingers up to the glass of the frame and senses some sort of energy surrounding it.

"_Yang_?" a voice in his head whispers, but when he turns around, he only sees Rumi waiting outside the hallway.

"Yang," she says quickly, "come on! We're going to get lost if we don't hurry up."

Yang looks back at the necklace and smiles softly. He turns away and proceeds toward the loud voice of his airbending friend. He goes through several doorways and eventually into a rather large guest room still on the ground floor. He looks around at the bedroom and finds an upgrade indeed. Three large, queen-sized beds with luxurious wooden headboards and the fluffiest quilts Yang's ever felt. The carpets seem freshly crafted in a rather expensive blue hue. The room itself is fit for someone of a grander title, yet this is only one of Hiroshi's father's guest rooms.

"How did your father get so rich?" Rumi asks with admiration.

"He was born into it. His parents were the original creators of the company; my father only had to do subpar work to maintain his fortune, but he decided to go all out to make himself the richest man alive," the rather quiet boy says.

"And I've succeeded—_and then some!_ I beat out the revived Cabbage Corp like it was nothing. The only thing standing in my way is Future Industries. Your mother is the next biggest billionaire in this nation, but I plan on changing that with my upcoming invention," a familiar albeit fairly new voice says from the hallway.

A man with tanned skin and fancy brown hair walks inside. He feels of his completely-shaven face and then brings out a tray of drinks. He begins telling the tales of his successes, the perils of his failures—which eventually turned into bigger successes. Well, except for his marriage—

"…but that's for another time!" he remarks. "I brought you some drinks! Hiroshi didn't tell me we had guests, but it's always nice to see some down-to-earth buddies of his here in my humble abode!"

_Humble?_ Yang jests to himself.

"Here, sir, this drink is for you," the man says to Yang and forces him to take a specific drink. "The rest of you can take the rest!"

Yang glances down at his drink with wonder and tastes of it—a fizzy citrus-flavored beverage that shivers along the way down his throat. The sugary taste makes his mouth turn inside out and he makes an unattractive face as a result of its unbalanced flavoring.

"I call it: Varrite! A drink you can ingest at night to settle the stomach and the soul," he says dreamily.

"Thank you, Dad, for your free samples. I'll call you if we want some Varriburgers," Hiroshi mutters.

Varrick takes a hint, puts his hands up, and exits the room silently. Yang, still unsure about this mysterious teen, sets his luggage down by his bed and plops right in. He tells the others goodnight, much to their surprise, and drifts off to sleep. Dolma shows Rumi all the features of the room while Hiroshi awkwardly stands at the doorway. Once Dolma waves him a goodnight, he leaves without another word. The girls yawn and climb into their beds as Dolma flicks the light off. Yang tugs at the covers and tosses around inside as he struggles to fall asleep, but when he finally gets comfortable, he drifts right off to sleep.

. . .

_Dream_

"Arf!" squeals a short-haired dog of a snowy color.

Yang finds himself awakened by this loud cry for help. He finds the puppy whining and walking backwards as if to indicate that Yang should follow it. He pulls the covers back from his bed and slowly sprawls onto the floor. He steps quietly, each tiptoe simulating an inaudible creaking of the wood, and hurriedly exits the room. He suddenly finds himself automatically outside, though he is unsure how that is exactly possible.

It's very cold. The puppy runs across the street with Yang close on its tail. His running feels effortless—he's making progress without breaking a sweat. He chases after the animal and finds himself face-to-face with the spirit portal from earlier. The dog walks up to him and tugs at his jeans with its teeth. He follows it into the pillar of light and is beamed out of this world, out of the society he finds familiar. He feels as if to scream, as if to allow the burden of hiding his true identity to fly off his shoulders. When he is shoved into the Spirit World, no scream is produced. He falls on his hands and knees and slowly gets up to look at the dog.

However, there is no dog now. There is only a small yellow spirit. It has leaves for ears and a fairly cute appearance that comforts him from the cold insensitivity of his journey. The spirit walks on and beckons Yang to follow it further. He sees it speaking, though it seems the audio has been completely removed from it—some sort of video editing goes through his mind, but he finds himself turning fuzzy. He walks up to the spirit and attempts to initiate some sort of deeper link with it.

"What's going on?" he asks, half expecting the spirit to turn back into the dog and bark at him.

"You must help—the Tea Shop!" it cries and then flies off into the darkness.

Yang finds himself running toward it, yet he isn't moving voluntarily. The setting seems to rush beneath his feet and change faster than what he can accommodate for. He stops running and finds himself watching a group of workers with a letter "_H_" on their uniforms. They appear to be doing something. Yang blinks and finally observes the situation around him. Between a purple sky, rotten earth, and houses everywhere, these men in suits appear more shady than he expects. Yang's attention draws onto a man with broadened shoulders and a boisterous voice: President Maiko.

The man overlooks several workers by a building. However, Yang sneaks and hides behind a car to find that the men, probably five in total, are not building houses—they're attacking a spirit that has come into the city! Yang watches in horror as the men use their metalbending to throw car doors and metal bars at the pink, fishlike spirit's body.

"Don't stop until it's dead," the president says. "Spirits are the bane of humanity."

Yang flinches each time the spirit is hit. He watches it get hit repeatedly and finds himself feeling weaker upon each blow. He begins to lose focus. He sees President Maiko enter a building—with some sort of cup on it?—and leave the others outside. Yang falls to the ground as the creature does, and one final move makes the spirit disintegrate and Yang plop out of his dream.

. . .

"No!" Yang yells when he wakes up.

Dolma and Rumi remain asleep, with Dolma even muttering some sort of phrase under her breath (probably something along the lines of "Shut up, Yang!") as she turns toward the other side of her new bed. Yang, feeling a rush of adrenaline, jumps out of his covers and runs out of the bedroom. He skids across the kitchen tiles in his socks and exits one of the screen doors to luckily find a barn. The screen door slams behind him—crap.

Yang runs over to the apparent barn that Choju was sent to and opens the door. Several animals, most for sports or for the sake of having them, occupy stalls that are clean and grand (by animal standards). Yang finds Choju in one of the corner stalls with Tako on his antlers. Yang gently sets the sugar glider down on some straw and grabs Choju's trunk. He rubs it and awakens the creature, which happily thuds against the ground with its huge feet. He signals for hit to be quiet and takes the animal out of the barn. He mounts himself on top of it and begins his journey to the spirit portal. Meanwhile, a figure's silhouette can be seen in the back door, though Yang misses it in the darkness and fails to recognize any presence. As such, he guides Choju out of the gates.

He chases after the invisible spirit as before and envisions the correct path to the portal. Though he chased down Hiroshi before, it's impossible to think clearly back to the other day and remember the route. Choju takes Yang down several empty streets and he eventually sees the long beam of energy just as depicted before. The yellow portal seems dimmer than in his dream, but Yang enters it anyway in anticipation of a similar experience.

"Get that metal rod! It'll make everything much easier!" one of the suited men from before says.

Yang has Choju stay by the portal and runs across the dead land over to where the five men with the "_H_" logos are. He hides behind the same car and sees a familiar pink fish spirit surrounded by goons.

"We can't just let it stay here," another says.

"Yeah, it's starting to get annoying! Did you see what happened to Ping?"

Yang breathes in heavily and jumps out from behind the car. He smashes its door and makes a fist of bent metal that is battle ready. The men in the black uniforms see his threatening posture and get into battle-ready stances. The spirit weakly moves over and lies down near the back of the car, but Yang moves beyond its weak grasp and prepares for a vigorous battle.

The adrenaline pumps Yang's otherwise nonexistent confidence to high levels. Yang, after at least learning a few techniques from the airbenders, suggests some sort of sense of grace in his movements. He ducks under a blast of fire and smacks one of the goons with his fist of metal. He drops the weapon and slams it into an earthbender that fails to dodge his attack. Two down, three to go. Yang dances down to the ground and misses another fire punch from one of the larger grunts and summons up a pillar of earth that slams into the man's chin. He makes another rock appear from the ground and punches small discs out of it that fly and knock out that man and another that rushes to his aid. The last bender was previously busy looking at blueprints, but he falls to a fire kick that causes him to hit the foundation of his next work-in-progress. Yang sees a panicked President Maiko run in that familiar building and the Avatar chases after him. The spirit, meanwhile, flees the scene while it still can.

Yang busts through the wooden doors and slams onto the ground of the establishment. His eyes are momentarily closed to avoid damage from the impact, but he can already envision the thousands of grunts that wait for Maiko's commands. Asuka told Yang all about the danger this man represents. Yang opens his eyes and prepares his fists for battle.

"President Maiko, show yourself!" he shouts out loud.

Yang then realizes where he is. He is in the middle of a currently-busy tea shop. Every pair of eyes stares at the peculiar sight—especially the fragile pupils of Mrs. Li Tang, First Lady and entrepreneur of the Republic Nation. She was serving tea to a customer right as Yang had barged in, but she now, preoccupied at the moment, spills the hot tea on the man's pants and causes him to fuss. Yang senses several figures come from behind the hole he had created, indicated that he is surrounded by the goons. However, once he sees the many innocent people drinking tea and chatting together, he feels very confused.

"Wh-why are you here?" the woman of maybe thirty years asks.

Suddenly, a rather relaxed President Maiko walks out of the back of Li Tang's restaurant with a fresh cup of dark, hot tea. He sips the tea, sees the wreckage and commotion, and spits it all over the floor—as well as on that same customer. The man gets up, curses the eatery, and leaves. President Maiko stands before Yang.

The secret Avatar metalbends one of the steel-framed chairs to hit the targeted villain, however with the cue of a mere finger movement, one of the grunts responds to Maiko's request and chi blocks Yang's arms. They go limp as he feels the quick jabs. The man proceeds to jab other places.

"You have been murdering spirits in their own realm!" Yang yells in captivity.

President Maiko chuckles a little as he realizes the current situation. He runs a finger over his turning-grey hair and clicks his tongue. "That spirit went rogue. It injured three of my men and put another in intensive care just because we put up a building. If I hadn't ordered its execution, we would have lost a dedicated man."

"What does the letter on those uniforms stand for, anyways?" Yang asks.

"Maiko, I guess. My finance handler ordered them from a private supplier," the man says hoarsely.

"That'd be me," Li Tang smiles. "I ordered the 'Team Humanist' uniforms! Those men are architects trying to design a homeless shelter to decrease the poverty rates and increase sheltered families' chances at redemption."

"B-but, my dream?" Yang stutters. _How could it be so wrong?_

"I don't know what you're talking about," the president says sternly. "Nevertheless, you're going to be facing some jail-time for all the chaos you've created."

Yang's face turns red and the hairs on his neck stand up straight. It looks like incarceration was coming for him, with or without them knowing his identity. He begins to feel tears begin to push against the dam of his tear ducts. His destiny must be fulfilled…not blocked.

"Now wait just a second," a voice says from behind everyone.

President Maiko, Li Tang, and the guards (which also means Yang gets a look, too) glance over at the new visitor in curiosity. Li Tang tenses up when seeing just who it is.

Varrick, Hiroshi's father and Yang's somewhat-of-a-landlord, steps over in blue pajamas and a night cap. He rubs his eyes and stretches his arms. "What's going on here?" he asks as he sees Yang captured by the architects.

"This boy is a threat to society and a danger to our construction," the president announces.

Varrick laughs a hearty laugh and steps up to the same level as the proud figure before him. "Mister President, this is all a big misunderstanding!"

"It is?" everyone replies, including Yang.

"Yes, yes it is. You see, this boy has been staying under my roof and, just recently, I slipped a new sleeping drug in his drink to see how it affects the general public. I couldn't just put it on the shelves without testing it out, you know? It must've caused advanced sleepwalking!"

The married couple of authority look at each other with confusion and glance at Yang, who smiles with a fairly guilty expression on his face.

"I hope my experiments won't lead to a _problem_ between us," he says manipulatively.

"Excuse us," the First Lady says politely. She takes her husband by the arm and moves him aside from the others, though still in earshot. "Forget about the boy, honey. I can't afford to lose Varrick's share in my business. I'll go into bankruptcy and then we'll look like weak."

President Maiko sighs and pinches the skin between his eyes. He pushes his pair of square glasses back up against his face, almost too far, and looks back at Yang and then over to his key campaign donor.

"Varrick, I apologize for any inconvenience we may've caused you. I had no idea," he says.

"No, you didn't, did you? Maybe I ought to create some sort of messaging system to get to you directly and quickly. Ah, I wonder if that's ahead of my time. I hope so, because I thought of it first!"

Yang is freed by the awkward architects and is quickly drug out of the building by the sneaky Varrick's strong grip. They run to the portal and Yang helps Varrick on Choju to make a speedy trip home. They enter the portal and feel the usual burst of energy, but are soon sent back into the material world and begin on their way home.

"Why did you save me with that lie?" Yang asks. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but why?"

Varrick looks annoyed with such a stupid question. "I explained it already—I slipped a developing sleeping pill in your drink last night. I think I'll call it 'VarriNite.' Hmm, it needs work."

Yang goes without another word the rest of the trip home.

. . .

"Where the heck did _you_ go?" asks an angry Dolma.

Yang had walked into the room to see Dolma, Rumi, and Hiroshi waiting for his return. When he and Varrick entered the house, both of them got questioned harshly. While Varrick was more discreet about the whole situation, Yang spilled every detail he could think of.

"So I had a dream where a spirit got attacked by Maiko's gang, but when I went there in real life it turned out to've been a harmful spirit. I ended up attacking a bunch of architects, somewhat arrested by the president, and saved by Hiroshi's father's crazy sleeping pill that he slipped in my drink last night. Oh, and there was a dog that turned into a spirit. I think it was a white dog," he says very, very quickly.

The other three look at each other slowly and didn't bother replying to Yang's comment. Hiroshi, however, turns around to his father and gives him a sign of appreciation.

"Thank you for helping Dolma's friend," he says, which somewhat irks Yang.

"You owe me, kid—and I know just how you can help me out. I have this stool softener medication that I'm working on and I need to know if it makes it all soft or like a brick. Get it, a brick? Earthbender?"

No one replies to Varrick's comment, either. Varrick and Hiroshi go back to their room to get whatever sleep they can muster in the last few hours of the night. Rumi and Dolma sit on their beds and Yang turns on a lamp as Dolma flips the light switch.

"Do you really think it was the pill that caused your dream?" Rumi asks Yang.

Yang presses his front teeth together for a moment as he thinks. "I'm not sure," he finally says—indecisive. "I think that dream means something, though. I guess it just doesn't mean what I thought."

. . .

_Meanwhile_

President Maiko goes into the security room and looks for the camera screens. He goes through the footage to find some black-and-white evidence of the boy's earlier disruption of his work at hand. The construction was going so smoothly, too, but, for some reason, that teen found anger the acts. He finds the footage where the boy was bending and watches. His metalbending and earthbending are very strong; he was most likely trained by a skilled master. However, as he watches further into the clip, the man notices something interesting:

That same boy was just firebending.


	9. Chapter 9: The Drained

"Okay now, Yang, feel the earth in that door and bend it—that's right, yeah, now quickly form it into the shape of your torso and put it around you," the old Lin Beifong instructs.

Yang has the silver car door in the air. He senses even the smaller bits of earth in the metal and slowly snaps it around his chest to form armor. He bends it off when he starts to lose his balance. He then focuses back on the levitating door and rearranges the bits of earth that turn it back into its original shape.

Lin Beifong nods her head in approval. "You're learning faster than most of my officers," she smirks.

Yang thinks about the meeting he had with Asuka, his firebending master. He remembers her speaking about her journalism and sees the pictures of President Maiko attacking those spirits in his mind. He feels hesitant, but Yang finally brings up the question to his metalbending instructor.

"Do you know anything shady about President Maiko?" he asks her innocently.

Lin studies him with her old withered eyes and blinks, effectively resetting her train of thought. "No, I can't think of anything at the moment," she says loud enough for everyone else to hear. "Why? What's wrong?"

Yang reminds himself to play it easy after what had happened the night before, so he shuts down and shakes his head at the woman. "Nothing, just teenage gossip I guess."

. . .

Dolma walks side-by-side with Hiroshi around Avatar Korra Park. They see the spirit vines around the other side of the city and Hiroshi remarks that his grandmother brought them into the world when she opened the portals. Dolma pretends to keep interest, but she merely wishes to keep the walk from becoming awkward.

Hiroshi had promised to show her around the city with extensive details and a tourism-embraced attitude, but he seems to have something else on his mind. Dolma decides it best to let him keep the information to himself. They pass the park and find a large building bustling with laughing and music. When they walk by it, Dolma reads out that it's a dance club. She grabs Hiroshi by the arm and slings him inside against his will. She shuts the door and looks at the dancing madness that has unfolded before them.

A disco ball creates a dazzling display of light on the ground while spotlights go all around to give the place some color. Dolma notices Prince Lu's voice in the music—it must be his newest single or something. She smiles in remembering his goofiness, but reality sets back to Hiroshi as he stands there by the doorway.

"Oh, come on, don't be pouty!" she giggles.

Dolma drags him out and moves his arms in the air like everyone else's, but he seems completely embarrassed for some reason. She frowns and follows his gaze to find out why. Past the refreshments table, the dancing couples, the all-out dancing in the back, she finds a rather older-looking man in a bright cyan outfit, his collar pulled up to look like Count Dracula. When Dolma looks up to view the face of this individual, she busts on the floor laughing.

The man, his hair sleeked back and his skin covered in dried-up lotion, is Hiroshi's mildly-insane father. She tells Hiroshi she has to go to the bathroom and he just stands there, by the exit, watching his father make a complete fool of himself. Dolma walks back against the side of the building and finds a secret room. She couldn't resist.

Dolma turns the brass knob and passes through the wooden door. The light has already been flicked on, so she figures someone is in the room already. The room is instead vacant. She looks around and finds a closet.

_Ah, a bathroom!_ she tells herself.

Dolma opens the door, which is actually the door to a closet, and a mass falls on the floor at her feet. She jumps back, alarmed, and looks at the creature that has fallen out. A man's corpse, deprived of any fluids in his body, looks like a prune—he's dried to the bone. His face looks like a gnarled tree knot, much to Dolma's horror, and she runs out of the room, screaming, and captures the attention of the club owner in time to call the police.

. . .

Rumi balances Tako on her shoulder as the she knocks on the door of a familiar house. She waits a few minutes, alone, and begins to walk off until the door suddenly creaks open. Asuka's brown eye is visible through the crack of the door, but she opens it wider when she sees the identity of her guest.

"Hello, Rumi, come on in!"

Rumi steps inside, her scorching hair matching the fire that sits in the fireplace as Asuka goes to sipping at her pre-made cup of tea. She offers Rumi a cup, but the girl shakes her head and taps Tako's little head awkwardly.

"You know Yang doesn't have practice again until tomorrow, right?" Asuka says slowly.

"Yes, ma'am, I was wondering if maybe I could—"

"Oh, do you have information for me? That is, info on Maiko?"

Rumi's eyes turn bold as she tries to get her point across. "Look, I'm an amateur chi blocker and was wondering if I could copy some of your firebending techniques so I could look more elegant?" she asks.

Asuka gives the idea some thought and smiles. "I have a cousin that can't bend the fire out of his candle, so I understand how you must feel to be a nonbender. It must be terrible to watch as your friends do all kinds of cool moves and control the elements, huh?"

Rumi's expression turns dull as she rests her chin on her hand. "Yeah, especially after being told about it."

Asuka sets her tea down and puts a hand on Rumi's shoulder. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry. My family has a history of, well, getting in the way of things."

Asuka and Rumi sit and stare at each other for a moment.

"Anyway, let's get started," the teacher says semi-enthusiastically. She brings Rumi into the training room and has her stand on the opposite side of this marked flooring.

"I want you to feel the energy flow through your arms into the tips of your fingers. Imagine your power like a river of chi," the woman says calmly. "Imagine you're gathering your life force in your hands."

Rumi gets a firm stance and begins moving her arms around in a circle. She extends them out into the shape of a bird's wingspan several times and she almost expects something to happen. Rumi copies her teacher's movements and begins to better understand the foundation of firebending better. Tako, meanwhile, glides around and chants loudly for whatever it finds merit in.

. . .

"Come on, kid," Lin says as she metalbends her metal arm bands back around her. "We have a report down by the dance club and I'm bringing you along with me."

Yang stops for a second. "I thought you said I've almost mastered metalbending."

"I said almost because I need you to run some errands with me. Now let's get in my car before I _throw_ you in my car," she demands.

She and Yang jump out of the Police Department's Headquarters and hop in the car Lin used before to catch Hiroshi. She speeds through traffic, nearly destroys Satomobiles in the process, and makes her round across Avatar Korra park before slamming on the brakes and pushing other cops out of the way by the club. Yang stays close by her and smirks at the embarrassed men as if he were just as powerful as his teacher.

"What've we got?" Lin asks the club manager, but he only says there's a prune in his private room.

_A prune?_ Yang thinks. _That sounds familiar._

They push people around until Lin discovers the room at hand. Yang sees Hiroshi in the distance and calls out to him, but when he sees Hiroshi's father still moving on the dance floor, he walks away slowly into the room Lin went into. He walks in and nearly trips on the corpse, only dodging it seconds before destroying the evidence.

The body was pruned and completely dehydrated. Yang sees Dolma by the doorway and smiles.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I was, uh, dancing around and found a dead body in the closet. Nothing important," she says.

"I see."

Yang goes back over to Lin and gets her attention. He explains how Sifu Asuka mentioned her father had apparently died in the same manner, and Lin raises an eyebrow in a rather hurt expression. She allows the paramedics to come in and search the body and instructs two goon policemen to watch over the scene and get an identification of the man as she leaves.

Yang offers Dolma a ride, but she says she's waiting on Hiroshi. Yang's dragged out of the club and back into the car. As he complains about his friends being left there, Lin stomps back in the building, grabs Hiroshi and Dolma, and throws them in the back seats of the car. Yang watches in surprise as they are thrown harshly. Lin starts its engine and slams on the gas pedal.

. . .

The brakes screech as Lin comes to a complete stop at Asuka's front door. She bangs on it, receives no answer, and busts the door open with her metal shoes. Her white hair slips out of the rather professional style it was in earlier and drapes across her shoulders. Yang follows closely behind the ill-tempered cop and has Dolma and Hiroshi wait at the doorway in case Lin has an even worse attitude shift.

Yang and Lin walk in to see Asuka and Rumi paused in a pose that awkwardly dismounts soon after.

"Asuka, this boy tells me your father has died?"

"Way to be gentle," Yang mutters.

"Y-yes," Asuka says. "He was completely dehydrated. The fire inside him must have overcome the water levels in his body."

Lin narrows her eyes and tells Asuka to make sure she knows who her audience is before giving away information.

Yang moves over to Rumi. "Rumi," he says, "why are you here doing firebending forms with my teacher?"

Rumi begins to sweat and quickly comes up with a resolution. "I was just borrowing a cup of sugar," she says.

"Halfway across town?" Dolma pipes up, resulting in Rumi giving her the most evil of looks.

"I hear…the Fire Nation…has good sugar?" she says in a questionable tone.

"It's true," Hiroshi chimes in.

"So what else do you know about these bodies, Asuka?" Lin asks as an attempt to ignore the kids' conversations.

"Nothing else, Lin. Honest. "

Yang studies Asuka's half-innocent, half-guilty expression and finds a question leaving his throat. "How did it happen?" he asks.

"It was sad," Lin says quickly. "I need to get going and ID that body."

As Lin leaves without Yang or the others, Asuka and Rumi sit down on the couch and sigh deeply. Asuka soon gets off the couch and disappears, but the awkwardness of the situation remains. Dolma says she thinks she heard something in the wind move, but Hiroshi says it was only Lin shutting the door.

They sit around quiet for a moment, and as Yang is about to say something to Rumi, she gets off the couch and stretches out. Yang sees sweat in her headband, but she pulls her fiery hair back in a ponytail and says she has an appointment somewhere. She leaves the building just as suspicious as Lin. She closes the door and walks off, and Yang frowns at her behavior.

"What's going on with everyone?" he asks Dolma, but she shrugs.

A cabinet slams and out comes Asuka with a tray of tea cups, each containing the steamy brown liquid. She says her mother used to love hot tea, but then goes silent. She walks back into the kitchen to put the tray in the sink and Yang tiptoes behind. He listens in the wall to see what Asuka's doing, but he only hears the rattling of the tray in the sink. He hears her about to walk out when suddenly glass breaks.

Hiroshi and Dolma jump up and join Yang. The trio slowly make it to the connecting hallway in between the two rooms and finds an unconscious Asuka with a rock right beside her. A man in a black uniform stares back at them through a mask and jumps out with a fist to shove another rock at Hiroshi.

Dolma flicks a gust of wind into his face and blows him backward as Yang catches the letter "H" imprinted on his uniform—the same as before. He narrows his eyes. Hiroshi grabs the hilt of his sword and unscrews the canteen of water strapped at his waist. He manipulates the water into a sword shape and freezes it, making a sharp, powerful weapon. Yang listens, waiting, and suddenly the door busts in with twelve more goons filling the room. Yang metalbends the now-loose door and slams one of the men down onto the ground. He bends the metal so it causes the sprawling man to be stuck like a knocked-over turtle.

Hiroshi fights another waterbender with his sword and slashes his sword against the streams of water the man flings at him. Dolma jumps lightly from couch to couch and bends another man to the floor. Yang sees one ready to chuck a rock in his face, but Asuka kicks out a fiery blaze that ignites his suit. He runs around, flailing and screaming, until Hiroshi's opponent douses the flames. Hiroshi slams his sword against both of them and slam them against the door-cloaked man.

Yang hops over to the door and bends a rock from outside to attempt to keep the house in one piece, but Asuka tells him to just get a rock already—she's facing two benders at once. The Avatar begins spinning the rock and punches it into three small stones. An earthbender attempts to stop him, but Dolma blows him off his feet as Yang slams the rock into the man's gut. The other two knock out the pair that attempt to help the man recuperate. Dolma jumps in front of him and airbends a metalbender out of the house and into the street. The man begins running in between cars and evacuates as fast as he can. Yang removes the metal door and Dolma blows the other guys out as well.

"We can use them as hostages!" Hiroshi yells as he faces a firebender that destroys his sword. "Don't let them escape!"

Yang shakes his head. "We can't just do that. Maiko will turn us into terrorists."

"_Then call the police!_"

Dolma throws something in the air and yells for Yang to catch it. He catches a small brown sack containing several marbles and smiles—they're made of metal. He takes the marbles out of the bag and starts spinning them around in between his two hands. He laughs at the sight and tells everyone to look, and everyone, including the strange suited men, do.

"Yang!" Dolma snaps.

"Sorry," he sighs as he slings the marbles into the eyes of a man who had been cowering in the corner. He runs off to cry and leaves his four comrades to face the rest of them.

A firebender attacks Asuka with a blaze that sends her couches ablaze. Hiroshi dismantles his sword to douse the flames and Asuka punches the man in the nose with a fist of fire. He falls onto the ground and she lifts him up and kicks him straight through the wall. She sighs at the damage to her house but continues nonetheless.

Dolma grabs a broom nearby and swiftly slices the air with it, leaving another man onto the ground. Hiroshi laughs at the sight before being struck by a waterbender's icy fist. He slams into the wall near the large hole and rolls to the left of his attacker. Yang metalbends the hilt of Hiroshi's broken sword and slams the guy in the stomach with it, causing him to fall backward. Yang bends a boulder up from the ground that sits right behind the man and then pushes it with his focus and slams him outside like the first spring in a pinball machine. Yang sighs and suddenly feels a presence behind him. He falls to the ground just as Hiroshi creates a ring of water around him and splashes icicles to knock an earthbender back. Yang stays on the ground and breathes out endlessly. He's extremely out of shape.

Asuka fights the last bender and dodges a kick that would have knocked her nose in. She backflips and then, surprisingly, shoots out a stream of electricity from her fingertips that severely damages the man and has him run off in a hurry. She looks at the damages to her house just as a potted plant splats to the ground.

"I-I can get my dad to pay for this," Hiroshi suggests.

"Is that always your cover?" Dolma asks.

. . .

"I'm sorry, miss, but there is nothing I can do about your paths. This blockage isn't some sort of physical damage—I can't just fix it," a large man of dark color smiles sympathetically at Rumi.

Rumi's face turns desperate. She looks around the healing shop at all the people getting fixed up from fist fights, bending battles, and who knows what else. She looks at the large man again and frowns. "Isn't there another place that could help?" she asks.

The man shakes his head, his long black hair shaking as a result. "I have some references, miss, but this damage is beyond anyone's repair. Even the best in the business couldn't help this case. Have you considered acupuncture?"

Rumi's face remains unchanged. "Six times."

"Perhaps a revisit to the past could mend your internal emotional state, but right now you are just going to have to deal with it," he says. "I'm sorry I couldn't help more."

Rumi nods and thanks him for trying, but she walks out of Harold's Healing Shack with an expression of only disappointment. Her head is held lower than normal and she walks home in the dark completely alone.

. . .

Asuka goes over to her telephone, which is right beside the shattered wall, and begins moving the dial to the numbers that coordinate with the phone number. She picks up the black phone and waits for an answer, but she automatically wraps her finger around in the coiled cord.

"Hello?" she asks without thinking.

"Yes, it's becoming dire, now. I think it's best if you come as soon as you can. Maiko's up to no good. No, I'm fine. We were—I was attacked by some creeps," Asuka whispers.

Dolma walks over to the phone quietly and listens to the voice on the receiving end. Meanwhile, Hiroshi and Dolma talk by the wet and burned couches about the great battle they just fought together.

"Thanks for saving me from that stupid waterbender. I don't like the way he fights," Hiroshi, embarrassed, says.

"You're the one who kept me from getting clobbered by that big guy that was right behind me," Yang laughs. They both smile. "We make a good team," the Avatar says.

"Yeah."

"Where did you learn to bend water like that? When I get to it, you'll have to teach me," Yang questions as a sort of conversation starter.

"My mom. She was an amazing waterbender back in the day. She was part of a pro-bending team before I was born, back when her mothers encouraged her to do what she wanted," he explains.

"Mothers?"

"Another time," Hiroshi chuckles. "But my mom will be a great waterbending instructor for you."

"Where is she now?"

He hesitates. "It's…complicated."

"Complicated life, huh?"

Hiroshi sighs and rubs a hand through his black hair. "You have no idea. Parents…"

"I know the feeling—I have three," Yang smiles.

"Three?"

Yang pauses just as Hiroshi had. "Another time."

The conversation is interrupted when Dolma recognizes the voice on the other end of the line. After hearing the rather boring, somewhat aged voice on the other side, she grabbed the phone from Asuka momentarily and mouthed the one word that made Yang's eyes widen: "Mom?"

Both Yang and Hiroshi stand up after hearing the word and Asuka only steals the phone back from the curious girl.

"Why is my daughter at the other end of this signal?" Yang hears Jinora ask in a confused tone.

Asuka laughs and tells her everything's fine. "I'm helping her friend learn to firebend."

"Yang? That makes sense."

"Yeah, Jinora, I need to go now. I have things to do," Asuka says quickly and then hangs up the phone. She turns around and looks at the kids with an excited expression."Jinora's coming for a visit!"

Dolma turns red with embarrassment, Yang turns worried for the upcoming judgment, and Hiroshi coughs awkwardly since his inclusion does not seem important right now. Yang scratches the back of his head and looks through the gaping hole in Asuka's wall as the sun falls behind the buildings outlining the city.


	10. Chapter 10: Humanism

"Status report?" replies a cold voice in the darkness.

One of the suited men sighs and scratches the back of his head. "We failed to capture the Avatar. He was accompanied by his friends and—"

"Hush. He's childish anyway. Perhaps we can take a different approach to taking the threat down. What did you learn?"

Another man walks slightly forward with more confidence than the other. "He's training under Firebending Master Asuka. The kid is friends with Hiroshi Sato and an airbender, but there's this redheaded girl that's been seen with him, too," he says.

"_Hiroshi Sato?_ That might be an obstacle in the future. Well, if the Avatar has friends, then that's exactly what we'll use against him."

The first man frowns. "Pardon?"

"His friends."

. . .

Yang walks on home from another firebending lesson and dances across the stone sidewalk along the way. He finds curiosity in the cracks and blemishes in the sidewalk and, when he sees something unnatural, the boy bends the stone back together as if to make it brand new. He smiles at the good deeds and keeps walking home. Just another little thing he's doing for the people.

As rush hour traffic begins to wade into the streets, Yang bumps into several people. He is pushed to the left by a fast-paced woman but then knocked back by a large man with a briefcase. He finds himself running with the herd and loses track of the sidewalk's imperfections. Somehow, within the mob of workers, he spots his older sister on her way home to her apartment. Yang catches up to Soma and pokes her arm.

"Hey," he smiles.

"Hi," the airbender says quietly.

"I'm sorry about how we ended things last time, but I am happy to see you again," he says with his hand naturally behind his head.

Soma smiles and ruffles his hair, causing the boy to frantically move it back into place. "No big deal. I exploded just as much as you did. So, how've you been?"

Yang bites his lip and maintains his secret further. "I've just about perfected metalbending," he says.

"Nice. I got promoted to head waitress as Li Tang's tea shop," she brags.

Yang cringes upon hearing the name, but his sister doesn't seem to register his reaction. He calms himself down quick enough to hear her mumbling one of his biological father's recent hits. He awkwardly keeps walking beside her through the traffic and soon spots Hiroshi's house in the distance. He needs to turn left.

"Soma," he begins.

"I love Prince Lu. He is probably my favorite singer—well, he might be tied with Lady KaKa of the Southern Water Tribe. That woman's weird, though," she says to herself.

"Lu's my real dad," Yang says bluntly.

Soma rolls the comment through her brain and makes a face. "Oh. Well, anyway, I better get home to let my pet turtlerat out for some exercise. It was nice seeing you, Yang, and you should come get some tea sometime!"

The girl brushes her dark hair past her face as the wind blows and smiles one last time.

Yang pauses. "Ok, I'll have to, then. You should go visit mom and dad at the air temple when you can, sis. Your leaving made them feel hollow for a long time."

The two of them continue on and come to the left turn Yang has to take. He stops walking and moves Soma over to the curb. He begins to leave when his sister finally gets the courage to admit her parent issues.

Soma sighs. "I hate being constricted to their lifestyle. Did you know Ikki wanted me to cut off my hair? That girl's insane. I'm just glad they got rid of the gender-specific rules."

"Well it was lovely talking with you about genders and tea, but I'm turning left right here. See you later," he yells as he walks off.

Soma watches him cross the street and shakes her head slightly at the boy's strange behavior. He always was a weird one.

. . .

Yang and Hiroshi sit on one of the benches that reside in Avatar Korra Park. The new Avatar looks at the decently-crafted wood and imagines some sort of honorable monument in his favor. Could he muster enough courage to earn one, though? He thinks about the dream, the reality of it all. That puppy he met…he _knew_ it somehow.

"Yang?" Hiroshi asks, causing Yang to snap out of his trance.

Rumi and Dolma practice attacks in front of them. Asuka referees the match, but it's clear Rumi is killing it. She dodges a blast of air and zips beside Dolma's right shoulder. A single poke disrupts the flow of Dolma's chi. Her arm goes numb as an effect and Dolma loses her concentration. Rumi goes completely behind her and jabs into her other paths, effectively taking Dolma's bending away. She falls over and sighs.

"It's amazing how you can still fight benders, Rumi," Dolma says.

Rumi looks off slightly as the firebending instructor walks up to join the conversation.

"Sometimes benders are much weaker than nonbenders. People adapt to what they have," she explains.

"Yang, what's wrong?" Hiroshi repeats.

Yang doesn't tell, but he knows what is wrong. Jinora's coming to put a stop to the corruption and he isn't doing anything about it yet. He's still a kid. An overlooked teenager. The past avatars did so much in their childhood, yet Yang was stuffed in a temple to waste a decade and a half. Now that he's free, he's still restricted.

_I guess I can relate to Soma in that regard_, he thinks.

"Nothing," Yang finally says.

They sit for a while and watch Dolma wipe the floor with Rumi the second time, though the girls eventually just start talking and laughing. Hiroshi solemnly looks over to see the Spirit Portal off in the distance.

"My grandmother made that half a century ago," he says.

Yang looks to see the beam of light. "Why?"

"It was a result of bringing harmony to the Earth Kingdom. She was an amazing woman."

Yang chuckles. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Hiroshi stares at him with a half-smile, half-frown expression. "Really?"

Tako jumps off a sleeping Choju and lands in Hiroshi's hair, causing him to jump up in surprise and make the sugar glider zoom around the park.

Asuka walks up to Yang while the others chase Tako and puts a hand on his shoulder. She smiles and brushes back her red hair. "Jinora said she's making a stop along the way. Wonder what that could be?"

. . .

Dolma's the first one to recognize the air bison in the distance. The large six-legged animal appears to be a speck on the horizon, but there's no question Jinora's on that speck. As Dolma eagerly looks for her mother, she glances to see Hiroshi is looking around for eavesdroppers.

Yang walks backward slowly as the flying bison settles on the ground with a thud. Three figures appear on the bison. The first, Jinora, slips off gently and runs to hug Dolma. Her hair is completely grey since the last time Yang saw her. Something's eating away at her. His gaze moves to the second figure, Airbending Master Meelo, hopping off the bison like an army general. He watches in horror as the elderly man stumbles up to him with a mission.

"Yang, congratulations! I will be your airbending sergeant—I mean instructor—as you master the elements!" he shouts.

Jinora tells him to shush; Yang is still undercover. "We left Rohan in charge of the air temple for now. Ikki's beginning to move some benders to the other temples now that we're finally growing. It's nice—it's what Dad would have wanted," she explains.

"_Dad_ would've wanted them all to shave their heads and live in single-gender temples like tradition," Meelo says with an eye-roll. "The stick-in-the-mud would probably be upset with us for not being perfect. Well, upset with me and Ikki."

Jinora ignores him and goes over to embrace Rumi. They smile at each other as Meelo directs his attention to Yang, who immediately feels uncomfortable to have the spotlight on him. He kind of frowns as Meelo storms closer.

"As your new airbending teacher, I'm going to carve you into the biggest Air Nomad of your life!"

Yang looks around him slightly and coughs. "Meelo, I've already been through airbender training. I know all the techniques by heart. I'm just not that great at them. I don't need teaching. I just need practice. I know the customs and the traditions. I still don't even eat meat," he says shyly.

Meelo lifts Yang's arm up and watches it flop down. "You don't have any muscle whatsoever," the man raises his eyebrows. "I'm going to change that."

"Well you can do Meelo Boot Camp when I've mastered the elements."

Asuka coughs quietly and brushes her hair back behind her left ear. Her smooth face crinkles at Meelo's brute language, but she smiles politely. "Hello, Meelo. You haven't changed a bit. Now, as you can see, I'm still teaching Yang firebending and—"

"Well he can still start to learn other bending techniques. My grandfather didn't even master them when he defeated Fire Lord Ozai."

Yang inches over to the quiet Dolma and elbows her. She looks over and they begin to exchange whispers.

"He was nicer last year," Yang chuckles.

"That's because you were a helpless nonbender," she says, and upon seeing Yang's rather hurt reaction, she quickly adds, "until you slammed Kaze with a rock!"

The last figure on the bison hops off and lands unsteadily, and, as compared to the airbenders, it is clear he is not of their heritage. The man has brown hair styled up in a fancy swirl that makes him look taller. He is long and slender, obviously a cool person—therefore Yang knew the identity without even trying to guess. He went to go greet his biological father, Prince Lu, the Ba Sing Se celebrity.

"Hey, Dad! What are you doing here?" Yang asks, his jade-colored eyes twinkling.

"I was asked by Jinora here to help bring attention to the Harmonic National Convention that will be going on this week. President Maiko's term is going to be cut short when we run him out of office!" the tan-colored man smiles.

"Harmonic National Convention? What are Harmonics?" Yang asks.

Jinora looks at the other adults, specifically at Asuka, almost shaming her for not explaining politics to the boy, but she smiles at the young Avatar. "There are two parties in the United Republic. The Harmonic Party and the Humanist Party. During the latter part of Avatar Korra's life, the Harmonic Party grew in power as the Avatar protected the Spirit World. However, once Korra got older and weaker, the Humanists grew in strength. Humanism revolves around the advancement of humanity, which sounds nice in retrospect, but they believe in human dominance over the Spirit World. Harmonics want equality and the conservation of what peace we have with this other realm."

Meelo pets the air bison and looks toward the ground. "Their main policy is: if the spirits are in our world, why aren't we in theirs?"

Yang thinks about that statement. Are they completely wrong? The spirits are all over the United Republic and have invaded many buildings and lives. Why _can't_ we live in the Spirit World? Is it really his place to have an opinion, anyway? He is the Avatar, after all. He's supposed to solve conflicts, not reinforce them.

Hiroshi coughs and adds in his input. "Politicians are dirty. My father is one of the slimiest. You can never believe a word they say."

"Really? Because President Maiko has a 67% approval rating. That's higher than even Avatar Aang's back when he first introduced the city in the first place," Asuka says. "Hiroshi, the only politicians that are telling the truth are the Harmonics. We only want the best for the world."

"How do you know what's best?" Yang asks suddenly.

No one speaks at first. Hiroshi rubs the back of his head and Asuka snaps her fingers repeatedly to produce sparks of electricity. Jinora finally responds back to Yang, but he is immediately treated exactly like Dolma.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand yet, Yang. We sheltered airbenders from politics because Air is the element of freedom. Only the older benders are aware of what's happening down here."

"So then you're protecting them from something that affects the entire world? Don't you think it's your job to _educate _them on what's going on around here?"

Lu puts a warm hand on Yang's shoulder and smiles understandingly. "Hey, I know what you mean, but each nation has its own culture. Airbenders are focused on spirituality—you should know that."

Dolma and Rumi begin to walk off into a conversation and pretend to ignore the tension lingering between Yang and his superiors. Hiroshi, of course, is interested in the worldly affairs, but what are a couple of girls going to do in such a discussion? Rumi tosses a berry across the park and has Tako fly off to catch it, but Dolma is stopped short by her mother's chilling commands.

"That reminds me, Meelo. While you're here for Yang, why don't you help Dolma? She doesn't exactly have her tattoos yet, and for a good reason."

Dolma's fists tremble with rage, but Meelo, and his grey, ruffled-up hair, walks over to whisper in her ear. "We'll go out for ice cream instead."

Meelo takes Dolma by the hand and whisks her away from the park, leaving Rumi with the others as the awkwardness ceases. Yang is tasked to accompany Hiroshi on a stakeout of Maiko's own campaign speech, and, though Yang feels hesitant to risk a run-in with the man again, he accepts. They walk off to get on Choju's back and soon trot away into the distance. As Rumi watches the last of her friends leave, she sighs.

"Lu, Jinora wants me to drive you to the center of the capital to prep for the meeting. She's going to be taking care of her air bison. I guess we can catch up on old times?"

Lu flashes a nostalgic grin and departs with the firebender. As Jinora watches them leave, she leans against the bison's cool fur and goes over the stresses of society in her mind.

"Maiko's going to get re-elected, my daughter's a brat, and now the Avatar sounds more Humanist every day," she sighs. "What would Dad do?"

Meanwhile, Rumi, who is eventually ditched by everyone, curls up in a ball on one of the park benches. Tako hops on the seat beside her and rubs against her arm, but the redhead shakes her head slowly.

"Forgotten again. Nonbending sucks."

. . .

Asuka's red Satomobile rockets into a parking space and is quickly turned off. She and Lu laugh at one of his lame jokes as they get out of the car. She beeps the horn twice and looks up at the stage where the nominee will attempt to bring attention back to the Harmonics. As Lu walks on stage to inspect his singing platform, Mako's daughter gets a podium from the trunk of her car and drags it up the steps of the raised platform.

"Who exactly _is _the nominee I'm sponsoring?"

"I think his name is Mr. Chan. I don't know, he's some leader of a small district toward the southern part of the nation. Ask Jinora when she makes it here. The speech is starting in…fifteen minutes," she says.

"Fifteen minutes? I need vocal prepping and a little practice and a song selection—"

"If you can just open your mouth and sing, that'll be enough. Thanks," Asuka smirks.

An air bison looms overhead and slowly descends to the ground nearby. Jinora hops off, her legs nearly giving way due to her old age, and walks up the steps to heavily set her existence near the younger generations'.

"Surely a celebrity can bring attention, so go ahead and start singing. Mr. Chan is going to be here in about twelve minutes," the woman says.

Asuka breathes in and pushes the wooden podium to the center of the raised platform, an old wooden plank area, and taps on the microphone that doesn't seem to work too well. Jinora pulls out a newer one to hook onto the holder and eventually manages to slip the cord into the right plug-in underneath their feet.

"Start now," she demands.

Prince Lu quickly finds himself starting to turn red. Three people have already come over to see what's going on, and he's surrounded by some firebender, an old lady, and a smelly bison. He sighs, slicks his hair back, and coughs automatically into his hand. The tanned fingers grasp the microphone, adjust it, and slip back behind the podium.

"Hello, United Republic! I am Prince Lu and will be singing a song dedicated to my late father, Wu, the brief ruler of the Earth Kingdom!"

With rush hour about to set in, Jinora and Asuka walk off the stage quickly so Lu can gain some attention. Jinora quickly runs off to a payphone to make some calls, but Lu realizes the spotlight is finally on him.

"Badger moles a-diggin' holes…under Republic City!" he begins.

Soon enough, the crowd begins to grow as the tender voice of a celebrity floods the busy streets of the Republic Nation. Someone shouts about the man being Prince Lu, causing girls to start screaming, and a few reporters run up within the first few minutes of Lu's singing. The man starts to feel the intensity of his singing and loses himself in the music.

"…but I do still think she's pretty!"

People cheer and shout his name, the crowd summing over two hundred. Lu smiles at the success of his attention-bringing, and after he finishes his mini tribute, he gets song requests from his newest album, _Bending Bodies._ He glances over to Asuka, the woman laughing in her hands and giving a humorous thumbs-up. He smiles.

. . .

Yang, Hiroshi, and Choju zoom out of the Spirit Portal once they materialize in the other world parallel to their own. The familiar heavy atmosphere crashes down on the Avatar like pressure placed on his lungs, but Hiroshi seems to be even lighter than before. Choju, on the other hand, is sniffing the ground for insects and interesting aromas. The trunk catches the scent of a group of people and slowly directs Yang to the meeting he has been reluctant to attend. A meeting with the same individuals he had threatened just nights before.

When they finally do make it to the incumbent's raised platform, they find a grand, square area made of solid granite. There is a fine podium made of metal that has been screwed into the platform with a fancy sound system hooked up all around. Maiko has obviously invested in making his speeches look amazing. Yang and Hiroshi stay back in the shadows of the crowd, a crowd of at least thousands, but they can see President Maiko and his wife standing proudly on stage as they deliver a rather cocky speech.

Maiko taps the microphone and inaudibly says something to his wife, who leaves to do a secret task of some sort. Whatever is going on, Yang selfishly assumes it involves his presence. He immediately finds himself as an outcast. Off in the front of the crowd, they can both see Varrick proudly seated in one of the few reserved chairs—a sight that makes Hiroshi scoff with disappointment.

President Maiko, his face aged with the stresses of political office, has dark grey hair and a faint stubble from working late at night. His piercing black eyes have seemingly no irises and his stature makes Yang feel tiny. The man is not physically fit, but being in the black suit with small vertical lines of grey somehow makes him seem long and slender—like a cunning old fox. The man appears to be an ashy reminder that evil finds its way into power one way or another. Yang shivers.

"For decades now," he begins, "the spirits have been allowed in our world to destroy our cities, litter our beautiful streets, and cause Avatar Korra to view Republic City—no, humanity!—as corrupt. Specifically the presidency. My uncle's fatal flaw in his terms of office was weakness. He was helpless when the world needed him. My next term will focus on clearing these very woods, these very spirits, to allow the lowest class cheap housing. The Avatar can no longer control how the Republic _Nation_ operates. The Avatar can no longer control our progression, as humans, into total control."

Yang feels a surge of rage erupt through his body and, anticipating this very reaction, Hiroshi grabs his arm reassuringly to calm the Avatar down.

"Avatar Korra used brute force to force us into conserving this very world—but the spirit vines have destroyed countless businesses and spirits have barged into the homes of our children for no apparent reason. This will not stand! Anyone against the construction of a city here in the Spirit World is against humanity as a whole and is therefore committing an act of treason on _his own kind!_"

Many people call out in agreement and clapping bursts through the aisles of ignorant businessmen and incompetent poor families. Several signs reading "Death to the Spirits!" and "The Avatar Can't Bend My Rights!" are tossed about in the enraged, yet thrilled audience.

Yang feels the pressure on him and finally hops off Choju. Hiroshi calls to him in a loud whisper, but the earthbender will not hear any more excuses. Yang flips his hands inward and causes a rock slab to propel him several feet in the air. Yang plops on stage, balances himself on his feet, and takes a defensive position in front of President Maiko.

The man gasps first, then the rest of the people, and then Yang. However, the boy presses on:

"The _Avatar_ has provided a balance between the two worlds, especially ours, for centuries. It has been the soul duty of countless lives to provide a link, and Korra has allowed humans and spirits to live together peacefully. How could you go against the Avatar after all the past lives have done? Avatar Wan saved the world from darkness. Avatar Yangchen provided peace for many years after her own death. Avatar Aang established Republic City in the first place. Are you that stupid? Are you really stupid enough to put the blame of your own failures as a president on these innocent lives? Innocent lives that, may I remind you, protected this city from countless threats within the past century?!"

The audience grows silent. No one rebels against Yang's comments, but no one sides with him. Hiroshi holds his breath in the back almost as much as Yang does on the stage.

"And how do you know all this, young boy? Are you reading up on your history or are you just sentimental?" the man smiles cunningly.

"I-I've read a lot of books," Yang says.

"So explain this to me, boy: how would the Avatar act if he knew the situation our nation is in? Is he going to let the homeless starve? Is he going to let children struggle to survive every single night, struggle to find a bed warm enough in the cold months of winter?"

Yang steps back a little. "No, o-of course not—but clearing the Spirit World isn't going to do any good! You are a dictator, a disgusting, self-centered _dictator!_" Yang yells.

President Maiko smiles when he recognizes Yang's hatred from before. He studies the teen's defensive stance, the cocky attitude, the momentary braveness.

"Resorting to calling names? That's rather weak. Why don't you suggest a better solution, then, young man," he says.

Someone walks up the stage's stairs and whispers something into a nervous Li Tang's ears, and she replies back in a hushed tone. Yang still cannot hear what they are saying.

"…I don't know what I would do, but not this. This is inhumane."

President Maiko laughs at the comment. "No, this is very humane. This is a Humanist rally. You hear that, United Republic? Not even our _Avatar _has an answer!"

The sentence hits Yang in the face like a truck on the highway. His face drains of color. He freezes. He hears the gasping, hears the silence, but he only realizes the shock. The shock of a knife in the back, a rock to the head, a fist to the face. Yang feels his tear ducts squirm at his eyes as they beg to relieve themselves, but he fights back. He fights back by freezing.

. . .

Lu hears the order from Jinora's whisper and coughs after singing his classic "Kyoshi Krazy." He thanks the cheering of many teenage girls and, in the background, a few boys, and calls everyone to please stay and listen to what he has to say.

"Thank you for listening to my performance. The only payment I ask of you is to pay attention to the concerning words of Harmonic presidential nominee Mr. Chan!"

No one comes up on stage. Asuka and Jinora run around desperately, but no man by the name of Chan arrives. Someone coughs in the audience, the cough being the awkward cue for people to leave, and Jinora immediately feels terrible about the speech being a flop. Another Humanist presidency would destroy the Spirit World.

As people turn to leave, Lu wipes his forehead. "Wait."

They turn around.

"People of the Republic Nation, my name is Prince Lu—"Prince is my stage name—and I suppose I will instead explain our dire situation. Our future incumbent wants to enact several policies regarding the destruction of one of our most preserved relics of history: the Spirit World. I don't know how he plans do this, but he wants to kill the spirits—not just the destructive ones, but also those playful little bunnies your kids play with after school—in order to set up a town centered on industry and business, not just the homeless shelter he has promised. However, it makes no sense to warrant these factories because Varrick Industries perfected a beta-tested, clean, renewable energy source in the spirit vines. In fact, they perfected the system nearly twelve years ago. No harm is done. I'm not sure why he isn't using this, but it's a much better alternative. And I'm also not sure how we will help the overpopulation issue, but I promise that the Harmonic Party only wishes to keep peace between the two worlds and maintain the harmony Avatar Korra set out to keep at even the age of seventeen. Think about your children, about your prideful connection with such a mysterious world. Think about the economy's centering on the Spirit Wilds. Do we really want to move to another realm when we have the power to keep our own? Do we really want to leave the land we rightfully deserve for no apparent reason? No, I don't want to. And, as citizens of the most spiritual location in the Earth Kingdom—maybe even the world—neither should you. Thank you."

As Lu turns around to walk off the stage, he hears people clapping behind him. Shocked, and obviously expecting no reply whatsoever, he turns around to see everyone completely moved by his emotional monologue. As the crowd cheers and whistles, and as Asuka and Jinora scream in excitement, Prince Lu holds up his hand and waves at the success he's met with straight out of his comfort zone.

. . .

Rumi throws another berry in the air for Tako to get. The sugarglider desperately reaches for the red sphere and catches it mid-flight, though he begins to fall to the ground in response. Rumi stands up in anticipation of catching him, but suddenly a net is launched that wraps itself around the small rodent's body. Rumi adjusts her red headband and assumes a fighting position.

Rumi dives down and dodges another net. Soon, two uniformed men run out of the park's bushes and begin bending at her. One man bends a rock up in the air, but Rumi moves out of the rock's range and stabs the man's arms' chi paths with her fingers. She hits his legs, his back, and knocks him over. Another man with a fist of fire runs up to her and she jabs in the middle of his stomach, causing him to double over and allowing her time to move her arm above his head and jam her elbow into the back of his skull. She then knees his face and knocks him back. She breathes heavily as the two men writhe on the ground desperately.

Rumi automatically sidesteps to avoid a metal clamp that would have cuffed her hands. She turns around and jabs her fingers straight behind the man's chin, in the soft part of his neck, and causes him to gurgle as he crashes down. The redheaded chi blocker steps across the bodies and starts running to Tako.

The metalbender soon lifts his head up and then bends a cable at Rumi's feet, causing the poor girl to fall to the ground and soon become overwhelmed by the mysterious men in the "H" uniforms.


	11. Chapter 11: Spirits

The cold pleasure of chocolate ice cream down Dolma's dry throat soothes the stresses dealt with her mother earlier. She exhales dreamily and shoves the stainless steel spoon into the frozen cream in order to scoop out more of the brown deliciousness. The two of them, as Meelo promised, sit on vintage stools at a small ice cream shop. The counter is speckled with white and black dots, like salt and pepper mixed together, with a cool texture reminiscent of their very deserts.

"Chocolate is the lowest of ice cream flavors, Dolma," Meelo says as he ferociously shoves a cone into his mouth.

"That's a lie!" Dolma smiles as she pushes her long brown hair back from her ears. "Chocolate is way better than _birthday cake_."

"Is not! Birthday cake is the flavor of men! Do you remember Kaze's birthday that one year—I think you were six, or maybe twelve; you never really have grown much in your life—" he begins.

"Uncle!"

"Sorry, sorry," he laughs. "Anyways: Kaze made me so proud as a teacher when he selected birthday cake ice cream. I ate probably four tubs before vomiting in the trash can. Your mother was embarrassed and made me sleep outside the temple for three days. She always did act like a mother. She was just so bossy."

Dolma pauses at the insult and tilts her head at a forty-five degree angle. She looks at her uncle and raises her eyebrows. "Why didn't you ever get married, Uncle Meelo?"

"Oh, I tried to about, let's see," he says, counting on his fingers, "three times? Yeah, three times."

"What?!"

"Yeah, but every single one of 'em tried to shackle ol' Meelo. Meelo doesn't take orders from no woman—the Meelo goes stag in style," he smiles with a cheesy finger-point.

"What happened to your exes, then?"

"One of them got into accounting I think. Boring girl. Another got pregnant-though she never would tell me who the daddy was-and had a family about three years later. The last one's been missing for about five years. She was a convict, so what do you expect?"

"Why are you telling me so much?" Dolma asks with puzzlement.

Meelo glances around at the small café and diverts his attention away from Dolma. The tiled floors and bright furniture bring out the rather showy atmosphere a tiny ice cream counter can have. Through the windows, traffic bustles as usual. He sighs at the loudness and looks back at his niece.

"I don't know, you asked. What have you been doing in the busiest nation in the world, anyway?"

"Oh, I've just been following Yang I guess. We've made some friends along the way, but I feel like I'm just fading into the background," Dolma admits.

"Have you told him that? Tell him that you can do whatever the heck you want! Do you want me to punch him? I'll take him out!"

"No, Uncle Meelo! Besides, airbenders haven't exactly gotten the best attention around here. Soma works as a waitress and I don't even know if she's happy about it," the girl says.

"Soma's here? She hasn't talked to her parents in forever—Igme goes into tears whenever I mention her name. Where's she working?"

By the ice cream counter, a wired telephone rings. The cashier leaves them alone and goes to the wall to answer it. The woman is darker-skinned with blue eyes, the stereotypical appearance of the Water Tribes. Dolma lowers her voice redundantly as she begins to speak more about the matter at hand.

"A place called the H.L. Café, a stupid tea shop in the Spirit World. The president's wife is the owner and plans on spreading them everywhere."

"Why would his wife have an interest in the Spirit World? And why is an airbender earning tips at a tea shop? That sounds more like a firebender's kind of job."

The cashier hangs up the phone and turns on the radio set. Her posture is in a slight bend, almost like your reaction when watching your favorite team playing airball. Dolma listens to the voice emanating out of the metal box and grabs her uncle's attention.

"_It appears that…wait, what? It appears that the Avatar is on the stage of President Maiko's campaign speech—and he is _not_ happy! We still have an Avatar? Is that good news?"_

Meelo coughs up a mouthful of ice cream and spits it out onto the countertop. Dolma gags at the vulgarity of his actions, but he throws a few Yuans down and drags her out of the ice cream parlor.

"I'm really gonna punch that boy now!"

. . .

Hiroshi watches in terror as Yang is frozen on the clean stage of President Maiko's advantageous conflict. The waterbender notices that, right behind Yang's petrified body, there is a faint yellow spirit hiding near his legs. There hasn't been a single spirit in this area of their own realm since he can remember. President Maiko has wiped them out. Even worse, his father provided the means to do so. The small yellow spirit fades away in the instant Hiroshi spots it. The glimmer of existence in what has seemed to be emptiness just disappeared. His attention, therefore, shifts back up to Yang and President Maiko.

"I don't appreciate your interruptions, young Avatar. The spirits live here in the United Republic—you've seen them, and those nasty vines won't go away, either—and so we are expanding the city into this world in response. Our small outpost will save thousands and still be small enough to not affect the environment. I don't understand why you can't side with humans just once in your lifetimes," the president argues.

The crowd grows silent with the intensity of the president's harsh words. Yang takes a step back. He looks back at the audience, the people, for some sort of assistance, but he is met with nothing.

Hiroshi watches in horror as his new friend finds quick embarrassment. He leaves Yang's elkephant behind and storms up to the front of the crowd. He nudges past judgmental citizens and side-steps news reporters to make it up to the front—right where his father sits with a Varriburger in his hands. The man takes a bite of the greasy food, makes a face, and throws it off in the crowd in an act of disgust. Hiroshi grabs his gaze and begins talking.

"Dad, you need to do something. Yang's being humiliated up there!"

The man grabs a comb out of his pocket and gently brushes his thick chestnut hair back. He sniffs the comb awkwardly and stuffs it into his jacket. The man smiles with his gleaming teeth and hops out of his chair to produce a shadow over Hiroshi's face.

"Why son, you're acting fairly considerate. What's up with you?"

"You really don't understand anything, do you?"

Varrick looks side to side and sighs. "Must we do this here?"

"Yes. Now you listen here: these people—Yang, Dolma, Rumi—I stole from them to get _your _attention and instead got _theirs._ They offered me friendship and all you can do is throw a stack of bills and tell me to go do whatever."

"I've just kept slack on your strings, Hiroshi. As a kid, all you ever wanted to do was what your mother told you not to. Now that I've taken up my old man's business, you finally started caring about our relationship. Now you can't stand me again. Son, are you…_mental?_"

Hiroshi's face turns red with anger. "You're going to act funny on me? My friend is up there getting the beat-down of his life and you have the power to stop it. You're sitting here throwing food and having a laugh!"

"That's what business is! Ha, you're finally getting it, Hiroshi. Maybe I outta make you my successor one day. But serious, that man right there is my prime customer. My others are getting killed right and left!"

"I'm glad you care more about your business than me—wait, did you say they're getting killed?"

"Beifong identified the body of the recent victim—it was Mr. Zhang, that bald man I've been ripping off for three years. He's my third business partner that has died this month."

"Well, Avatar?" Maiko speaks up from the previously silent stage.

Hiroshi looks at his distraught father, the actual worry hidden in his pupils, and rubs his own forehead. "I'll come back later and I want you to tell me about what's going on. You need to tell me these things. You know I'm good at sneaking around—I can figure out who killed him."

Their conversation is stopped as Avatar Yang steps up to the podium bravely. He takes in a deep sigh and rubs his hands across his head nervously. He pops his neck left and right and exhales audibly into the microphone.

"Oops, sorry about that," the green-eyed teen says. He soon puffs out his chest and looks at the crowd of thousands. "Hello, Republic Nation. I…I am your Avatar, I'm Avatar Yang. I don't really know what an Avatar does, nor exactly how, but I do know why—to keep balance between the two worlds. I understand we are having overpopulation issues, but must we kill spirits and destroy the environment for the sake of factories and buildings? Can we not contain our efforts and preserve such a mysterious realm?"

News reporters and journalists sprawl across the thousands of bodies and squirm into the front spaces near the podium. As Yang is swarmed with questions, President Maiko smiles slyly—he knows who has won already. It's a no-brainer.

"Avatar Yong, what are you planning to do if the president is re-elected?"

Yang thinks for a moment. "It's Yang, not Yong. I guess I'd..I don't know, stop him?"

"Avatar Yan, why did you wait so long to reveal your existence?"

"It's Yang: Y-A-N-G. I was adopted by Air Nomads—I thought I was a nonbender in the air temples for almost my whole life. It isn't exactly my fault," he says innocently.

"Avatar, what are you going to do about the overpopulation? Do you think a limit to child birth is the answer?"

Yang shakes his head anxiously. "I'm no politician, and it's not my call as to how many kids a person can have. I simply want to keep happiness in the worlds."

Yang soon sees a speck appear in the sky. He watches it as many other reporters take pictures or ask questions. Soon enough, the speck is revealed to be a gliding Meelo and Dolma coming straight for him. As the two land, Dolma hops off first and Meelo closes the glider into a staff and revolves it in his hands several times. He jumps in front of Yang, now between the Avatar and the microphone, and breathes unsteadily.

"No more questions!" he says in between gasps for air. "This kid isn't even the Avatar—he's insane!"

Yang sees Varrick grin at Hiroshi down beneath the stage's raised height. The earthbender's face burns with more embarrassment as Meelo tarnishes his reputation even further.

"Yes I am!" Yang says confusedly.

"Shh!"

The audience starts booing Meelo and calling him a liar. One person decides that since the airbender is his father, Yang, the son, is as much a liar as he is.

"Joke's on you! I hate kids!" Meelo yells into the microphone. "Now come on, Yang, let's get out of here," he says honestly.

Yang shakes his head. "I'm tired of hiding—they need me!"

Dolma bends an air scooter and starts rocketing away toward the back of the crowd, presumably toward Choju, and Hiroshi follows her. Meelo grabs Yang's arm as the boy tries to return to the podium.

"I was trapped in the wrong nation for fifteen years, Meelo! Let me be who I really am!"

Meelo yanks at his other arm and pulls him off stage. They eventually run out of the audience's view as President Maiko regains control of the stage. Meelo begins gliding and has a reluctant Yang hold onto him. The meeting is over. President Maiko has clearly won.

. . .

Meelo loses arm strength and collapses both himself and Yang on the ground by the Spirit Portal's entrance. Nearby, Dolma and Hiroshi pet Choju's trunk and have some small talk. When Meelo falls, Dolma goes to catch him, but she leaves Yang to fall flat on his face.

"Flying that kid is like flying a rock!" Meelo says as he rotates his arm in a windmill position. He looks at the three teens reconciling and tells them he has to leave. "I have some airbending duties to attend to," he explains.

As he walks into the Spirit Portal, the three of them climb onto Choju's hairy back. Yang snaps the reigns and the elkephant walks through the portal shortly after. The usual jittery feelings were suppressed by Yang's severe case of depression. Hiroshi mumbles about his father's bitterness as Dolma awkwardly rides in the middle.

"Maybe I could say something," she suggests.

"Why?" Yang mutters.

"Never mind."

They ride on through to Avatar Korra park and Hiroshi hops off. He looks toward the ground and feels guilt swarm over him like a hive of angry bees.

"I need to go talk to someone," he sighs. "We ended badly."

As the second person leaves, Yang and Dolma sit alone on Choju. It steadily trots back and forth on the smooth path as they finally reach the Korra statue.

"Rumi's gone," Yang notices.

"She must be off doing her own thing," Dolma says.

"She has been kind of distant lately," he admits.

They eventually get off Choju and sit on a bench in the park. Dolma swings her legs back and forth as Yang bends a few pebbles around on the ground. Is he even fit to be a bender? This phase of depression hits him the hardest—the depression that society did not stand up for its Avatar, its savior. He is reminded that, once again, life is proven cruel. He always has been the wrong puzzle piece in the box—he can never fit in with anyone, not even the calm airbenders. Even they found a reason to laugh.

"A lot has changed since last year," he finally mutters.

Dolma perks up and smiles. "Change…is good. Change brings opportunity."

"It also breaks tradition," he says.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm no politician, but the Republic _is_ getting overcrowded. The Earth Kingdom isn't going to want to give up more land," he says. "Maybe Maiko's right."

"I know what you mean. Maybe you should do things your way, you know? Feeling like a background character, like just a filler in this mixed up world, it stinks. You need to find something you're good at and address it," she first directs to him, but later to herself.

"You're right, Dolma. Thanks. What do you think I should do, then? Jinora isn't exactly the most reasonable woman."

"Have you asked the spirits?" she finally wonders.

Yang smacks his forehead hard and exhales through his nose with a small shake of the head. "You, miss, are a genius," he finally grins.

"I know, you just don't appreciate it enough," she returns the gesture.

Yang gets up and looks around at the green park. The water fountains are beautiful, the flowers in bloom are fresh, but something feels eerie about the whole park. It seems _heavy_, but he is not sure with what. He walks over to the statue of Avatar Korra, a statue built about half a century ago, and touches the large engraving across the base of the sculpture.

"Oh, Korra, I could really use your help right now," he sighs.

Dolma looks back over to Yang just in time to see him falling from the standing position. She leaps from the bench seat and air bends his body slightly above the ground. She slides her hands under him and lets his body settle back down gently. She holds his limp head in her arms and begins to freak out.

"Yang, where are you?"

A large grunt can be heard in close proximity and, as Dolma turns her head, an air bison thumps to the ground upon arrival. Jinora bends herself off the bison and Prince Lu slides down the side, this time catching himself on the landing. The two brush themselves off and walk on over to Dolma and Yang. Upon seeing him in her arms, Lu bolts to the scene.

"Asuka went home, but we came to debrief you—wait, what happened?" Jinora asks in a hoarse voice.

"He touched Korra's statue and just went unconscious. Is he okay?"

Jinora sits down and allows her red-and-orange airbender outfit to get grass stains. She puts her hands around her and raises her head up to the sky.

"There's a strong spiritual presence here—Yang must have been pulled into some sort of spiritual meditation. I've never quite experienced this sort of thing, but the energy feels familiar. What happened again?"

"Yang touched the statue of Korra and then just fell," she repeats.

Lu scoops up Yang's body and leans him against the statue so no support is required to keep him in a proper position. He glances toward a nodding Jinora as she smiles—she has figured out what is happening.

"He must be communicating with Korra. Some items and relics have a strong connection between Avatars, so it's only obvious a statue built in her honor would emit such a strong atmosphere. I wonder what they're saying?" she asks.

Everyone leans in closer to Yang's body, but the boy does not wake up.

"Well couldn't he just see her in the Spirit World?" Dolma asks.

Jinora shakes her head. "No, honey, Korra does things her own way."

. . .

Yang slowly opens his eyes to complete dizziness. He puts a hand to his forehead and sits up a little bit more proper in whatever setting he may be in. Once his vision refocuses on the environment, he begins to look at his surroundings. He finds himself inside a giant hollowed-out tree. It has a twisted body from what he can tell, but there is a huge opening in the front through which he could simply hop out. The hole in which he resides is actually quite large, and it appears as if he is in the Spirit World, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere to it.

He blinks hard and sees a figure casually leaning against the opening's outer lining. The figure is feminine, with beautiful Water Tribe skin and short brown hair. She is very muscular, yet he can sense the hint of emotional instability inside. He squints until the lighting clears up enough for him to view the deep blue eyes of his former self.

"Hey, Yang," she says as she dangles her leg over the outside of the tree trunk.

Yang feels of the floor and quickly sprawls to his feet. "How did I get here?" he asks.

She looks him over and grins. "Not bad. Little timid-looking, no muscular build whatsoever…but not bad."

He blushes as she analyzes him and he soon finds himself analyzing her.

"Korra," he says almost inaudibly.

"You summoned me with the statue—it's like a connection point. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I've been trying to speak with you, too, but your airbending never really took off. It still hasn't," she observes.

Yang sighs in shame.

"No, it's okay. I had the same problem before…sort of," she smiles, her bright expression lighting up the whole tree trunk. "Yang, you are the most spiritual person on your planet; you're practically half a spirit—ooh, but I guess you don't know that yet. You need to let your spiritual side flow out-you're too stiff to accept yourself. You need to understand that spiritual connection."

"Then help me understand!"

Korra walks over to him and pierces through his very soul with the solemnity her eyes soon take. She studies not his exterior appearances, but his own sense of Raava within. She, in her waterbender clothing, puts a muscular hand on his shoulder and looks slightly down toward his eyes.

"Do you know who you are?" she asks.

Yang looks off to the side. "To be honest, I was sort of a nobody for fifteen years. Now I'm the Avatar—an Avatar no one needs," he says.

Korra grins at the comments—she clearly has had the same problems in the past. "A close friend of mine once told me to have patience. Now, at seventeen, patience meant wait five seconds and punch 'em again, but I soon came to realize that the world will always need its Avatar—it's usually just stupid enough to need convincing."

Yang stares at her happy image. "I'm not the one who can lead the world..the president of Republic City declared the land a nation, and on top of that, he's completely taken over everything. This 'nation' has so many people that they want to expand into here—but with kids living on the streets, with people fighting over the smallest of scraps, I can't call him completely wrong."

Korra nods. "Yeah, it isn't easy being you—trust me, I know. I had to call for some help the first time, too. And the second. And the third, and so on. The point is that life as an Avatar isn't multiple choice. There is no clear answer to much of anything. You'll just have to make the worlds adapt."

"Korra?" Yang suddenly asks.

"Hm?"

"Where are the other Avatars? Aang, Roku, Kyoshi?"

Korra clenches her lips together and stares blankly at Yang's face. "Uhh…another time. Yang, tell me this: what brought you here? Why?"

Yang pauses for a moment. "What am I supposed to be? There's this set of standards and I can't live up to what the world expects me to be."

Korra's face turns bright at the amateur question, but she is soon overcome with seriousness just like the flickering of her deep blue eyes. "When I turned out to be the Avatar, the first thing I learned was that everyone else would just have to deal with it."

. . .

The native earthbender's eyes soon flutter as his vision sets back into his head. Yang knew he was in some sort of trance, some meditation, but he didn't feel exactly in the Spirit World. The atmosphere was different. Before clueing in on his surroundings, Yang still processes the information Korra had told him just before. The world would have to deal with it? Deal with him? Before, he couldn't deal with the world—he was cast out of it into seclusion. Now he is the most important person of his generation.

He finds himself in Hiroshi's house. He's lying on the comfy blue couch that sits right in front of the television. In front of his face, he sees the mouths of Dolma, Jinora, and his biological father speeding faster than the posted limit along the highway outside. He looks for some sort of button to restore their voices, some sort of mute button that he can repress so the TV drama can work again. However, it takes him several minutes to finally gain access to his hearing.

"Yang, are you okay? Can you hear me?" the nonbending Ba Sing Se citizen asks worriedly.

The Avatar nods and raises up to lean against his elbows on the couch cushion. He puts a hand to his forehead and rubs it firmly.

"Did you speak to Korra?" Jinora asks eagerly, her faint blue airbending tattoo quivering with excitement.

He nods again.

"What did you talk about?"

Yang closes his eyes a second and inhales a large sum of air. "I know exactly what I need to do."

. . .

Meelo sits down in the H.L. Café and takes in the bustling environment of the tea shop. Customers sip loudly, waitresses daintily walk on by, and cash registers click ferociously in the background. The airbender sits back and relaxes in the nice sunlight still shining outside.

He spots just the person he has been searching for. He pokes the waitress and asks for a stirring rod for his hot tea—when she turns around, Soma gasps a little upon seeing the familiar face from the air temple. Meelo, however, gives a gesture to be quiet and accepts the small block straw from her shaking hand.

Once he gets the rod, however, the man leaves without finishing his full cup of tea. Soma, confused, notices that he had put a small slip of paper in her hand during the exchange of the rod. She pushes back her dark hair, wipes the itching fear of being caught from her tattoo, and proceeds to read the message:

"_Meet me by the portal in our world tomorrow night."_

Soma slips the note into her apron pocket and turns around anxiously into the firebending man who had accompanied her and Li Tang to Varrick from before. He is a higher-up assistant, the only other person on her level in the tea shop hierarchy, and his tall, adamant appearance made her feel tiny.

"Shaw, you scared me!" she squeals.

The man looks dully into her nervous eyes and begins muttering. "Boss-woman wants to see you in the back."

Soma quickly gulps and leaves his presence as she walks further into the restaurant and eventually into the employees-only location of the building. She soon sees the waterbending boss playing with a droplet of water in between her hands. The woman, probably thirty years of age, acknowledges Soma with a distinct poker face.

"Hello, Soma," she says politely.

"Hello, Mrs. Li Tang," Soma whispers.

"Do you like your positions as top waitress and financial assistant?"

Soma's posture falls into a failure's position. Her head sinks down to her chest and her shoulders slouch. She knows where this is going. The girl apologizes for whatever she did wrong and says she'll hang her apron up, but the woman shakes her head quickly.

"No, no—I'm talking about offering a promotion," the woman explains.

Soma jolts back up into a respectful stature and glows with excitement. "A promotion?"

"I need you to help me with something _important_," Li Tang mutters, shifting her eyes back and forth through the kitchen, and finally smiles at Soma. "But you have to keep it a secret."


	12. Chapter 12: The Plan

The familiar elevator door slides open with a _ding!_ and several businessmen scurry out. The lagging man trips on the tiled floor and loses his glasses. He scavenges the floor for them, his short, messy hair caked in sweat, as the metallic door begins to close. The tip of a black shoe slips between the doors and forces them back open. As they draw back, a very determined Hiroshi walks out and around the corner of Varrick Industries' luxury offices.

The office was the same as when Li Tang's tea business had stopped by. Hiroshi remembers just meeting his friends then—it seemed so long ago, but it couldn't have been but a few weeks. He attempts to open the door, finds it unlocked, and opens without an appointment. Hiroshi sees his busy father doing some sort of financial paperwork but doesn't have the slightest interest. He stares at the dark-skinned Water Tribe descendant and judges him, though not necessary for his past actions, but rather what _could have been_ his past actions.

"Father, we need to talk about your priorities," he says.

Varrick does not move from his posture, nor does he engage any eye contact. "What kind of priorities, Hiroshi? I'm awfully busy with work right now."

Hiroshi gnashes his teeth. "I don't want handcuffs around your wrists when the time comes that Maiko is arrested. We both know he's up to no good. I don't care if you're making even more money off of it. I care about you, Dad."

Varrick's eyes quiver and blink away the formation of a tear. He moves over to his large computer and begins typing profusely. He shrugs off the comment and continues to his work.

"Why are you so absorbed in making money?"

The father smiles sympathetically and pauses from his typing. His fingers, long and callused at the pads, rest on the keyboard. "I know how you feel, Hiroshi. I've driven myself into the same hole my ol' dad did when I was about your age. You have to understand my position. I'm CEO of the biggest corporation in the United Republic. In a way, I'm the largest position of them all. I _am_ politics."

Hiroshi's cold stare grows emotional and he sniffs audibly. "How did your customers die?" he asks.

"Dehydration. The last one looked like an old raisin. The poor guy kind of looked like one before, but—holy goose-cow!—that murderer got him good."

The teenager thinks about his father's words and nods his head in conclusion. He awkwardly leaves Varrick's presence, slips back out the door, and walks over to the elevator. Someone is trying to kill his family, it seems, but, whether financially or emotionally, he wasn't sure.

. . .

_Later that Day_

The Spirit World seems cold to Soma. After being driven out beyond the small spirit city, beyond human's early civilization, she is now being taken into the wilderness by her own boss, the First Lady. The two women, one in her thirties, though aging quickly from stress, and the other in her early twenties, press on through the random scenery displayed through the mythological environment.

"What are we doing out here?" Soma eventually asks as she brushes back her dark hair and pulls it into a ponytail.

Li Tang's tanned face smirks lightly. "I need your help with something important," she says.

"Well, what?"

They continue walking until the atmosphere begins to change. Instead of the light-hearted forest surrounding them, an eerie fog drifts low to the ground. The previously content spirits squeamishly float away. It gets dark fast. Soma feels a tingling travel up her spine until she eventually has to shake it off.

Li Tang stops her walking as Soma steps on the edge of the ground and loses her footing. She slips down a slope and is caught before sinking down into the thick fog below. She yelps, clasps Li Tang's hand harder, and is helped up onto more solid ground.

"Do you know where you are?"

Soma slowly nods her head, the nod consisting of both curiosity and terror.

"We're at the Fog of Lost Souls," she says slowly.

Li Tang nods. "There are many restless humans trapped underneath that fog. The spirits have created a human prison."

Soma nods again for no particular reason. She knows those who are trapped in the grogginess of the fog are placed there for a reason, whether it be for evil intentions in the spirit world or their own. "Why are we here?"

Li Tang inhales through her mouth and slowly allows it back out her nose. "In honor of my teacher, I will—_we_ will—set them free."

. . .

Hiroshi walks briskly home from his father's office. He crosses roads, parks, and stores as he travels through the busiest nation in the world. However, because rush hour is over, there are not very many people walking the streets. The feeling is bittersweet; while no one is there to bother him, Hiroshi knows shady business happens later in the day. He keeps walking until he realizes the light from lamp posts begins to shine on the sidewalk—it's getting darker.

He feels his skin shiver with anxiety and he begins his way home. As Hiroshi nears his home, he hears a bang in one of the alleyways. Hiroshi bends the water out of a bush and sucks the plant dry. He creates a bubble out of the resultant water and revolves it in his hands as he checks all around.

The suited man, an H.L. "architect," reveals himself from the alleyway with eye contact completely on Hiroshi. The thug punches a stream of fire as Hiroshi dives under and, with a palm covered in that bubble of water, freezes the man's face into a chunk of ice. While the man struggles to get out (which Hiroshi finds peculiar since he can just firebend), the rich teen gallops toward his house under the lamplights' guidance.

He steps from circle to circle of the yellow light and feels the safety each brightened cement block provides him. Hiroshi eventually makes it in front of his mansion and slips inside. He locks the door and slams himself against it.

Talking on the couch are Dolma and Yang. Yang has obviously felt some sort of trauma; he is bruised and didn't look very stable. Dolma, on the other hand, seems to have taken the situation over.

"What happened?" he asks the two of them.

"Nothing really. Jinora took the others to discuss politics or something. Yang just had a meeting with your grandma, too," Dolma explains.

Hiroshi seems puzzled, yet he dismisses his curiosity for later. "That's great. I've put a link of the murders to my father's company—someone wants to destroy the business or something. I actually just got attacked by another one of those shady men."

Yang sits and thinks. He rubs the bruised spot on his head and nods his head for no tangible reason. Hiroshi sees a new confidence inside him, or maybe a new sense of purpose?

"President Maiko must be trying to destroy Varrick in order to be the most successful person in the United Republic, then," Dolma concludes.

Hiroshi nods. "I'll call the police," he says. Mr. Sato walks over to the black telephone and prepares to dial the number.

"Wait," Yang says.

"What?"

"Call your father back instead—ask him about his relationship to the president's wife's tea shop. Do you remember their business meeting we barged in on? It seemed a little much for new kitchen supplies," Yang suggests intuitively.

As Hiroshi dials his father's number, Dolma curls up on the couch and frowns. "Rumi's been gone way too long," she says.

Yang nods nervously. "She should've been back by now. I noticed that Tako isn't home either," he whispers.

"Five trucks?" Hiroshi repeats back his father's words through the phone. "What does she need five trucks for?"

"Why do you think Rumi's been acting weird recently, anyway, Yang?" Dolma asks. "She was with Asuka before you even got there for a fire lesson."

"Maybe she just wanted a form for her chi blocking?"

"Or maybe she wanted to fend for herself. For all we know, she could've gone to face Maiko on her own," Dolma says.

Yang shakes his head. "She's smarter than that. She's the one who thinks. We're the ones that go in over our heads. I learned from Korra that maybe, for me, at least, that isn't entirely a bad thing. I need to find Rumi, but I also need to save the Spirit World."

Hiroshi hangs up the phone violently. He looks back over to his friends with a look of confusion and aggression. "Li Tang gets five trucks of _weaponry_ every few weeks for her shop. There has to be something wrong with that."

"She's hiding something—or, better yet, her husband is," Yang says. _Still, it seems pointless to become the most powerful person...what is Maiko's real plan?_

"The worst part is that my father knew all about it. The only thing he said to me was 'it's none of my business if she needs a sword to stir her tea. I'm in it for the money!'"

. . .

Prince Lu walks the streets of the United Republic in the dark. He sees a worn newspaper on the ground and tosses it in the trash. He puts his hands in his pockets as the coolness sets in and he looks at the windows of many different stores. In one window, he sees several televisions stacked on top of each other. He presses his face up against the glass barrier and stares at the newly colored screen. Each one shows a picture of Yang, his own son, and has lines such as "Wreaking Havoc in the Republic!" or "Wanted for Criminal Acts as an Avatar." He frowns and removes his face from up against the glass. As Lu zooms out from watching the TV, he sees the reflection of a person in a provocative stance: battle-ready.

He turns around and dodges a thrown pie. The desert, possibly strawberry, makes a _splat! _against the window and Lu notices several individuals beginning to collect around him.

"It's the Harmonic speaker!" one yells.

"Infiltrate the spirits!" another says.

Lu quickly rushes away from the Humanist revolt and starts racing for the Four Elements Hotel. Behind him, he sees a black limousine slowly following. He runs a bit faster and, as a result, the car goes up a notch in speed. He soon starts jogging, then running, as the car goes faster. Eventually, however, the elongated vehicle catches up to him. The passenger window rolls down and the person inside, behind black shades, looks at Lu's desperate face.

"The president would like a word with you, Lu," he says. "Get in the car."

Prince Lu, distraught about his defenseless demeanor, hesitantly opens the back door and sits in an empty cushion, a cushion of red felt. Whether or not he made the right decision, Lu worries more about his son than the political issues he is wrapped up in.

. . .

Avatar Korra Park, especially late at night, looks very peaceful as the water fountains settle to calm pools of liquid and the bushes create mysterious shakes and sounds. Meelo and Jinora, sibling and sibling, sit side by side together on one of the park benches. While Meelo seems more relaxed, Jinora is self-absorbed in her storm cloud of gray depression.

"The Republic Nation is going to destroy the Spirit World," she says, "and there's nothing I can do about it. Dad would've solved the problem already. He'd be so disappointed in me right now."

"Jinora," Meelo begins, "you're the most spiritual human in existence—well, other than Yang, but he isn't exactly mastering his airbending anytime soon. The Spirit World is still alive because of _you_."

Jinora smiles at the strangely uplifting comment Meelo gave. "Ever since I lost Kai, it's like I've lost everything. Dolma's grown up and doesn't need my care anymore. Now I'm an old lady who can't convince a crowd of anything. Maybe I should just get a bunch of cats and take care of them." She sighs. "Nope, the cats would just leave eventually, too."

Meelo rolls his eyes. "You need to get over yourself. You lost Kai, you lost Dolma, but you still have your legacy. Besides, someone else seems to be able to convince a crowd."

"Lu's speech was very good, but he's a singer…not a politician. Perhaps the Republic Nation has a chance with Yang, but he doesn't seem to care anything about spirits anyway. The other day, he seemed more Humanist than Harmonic. I feel like what good traits he does have are just because we drilled them into him," she says.

"Yang has something Korra couldn't master: instinct. While Korra was aggressive, she couldn't become so decisive like he can be when it comes down to it. Look how he acted on stage the other day: he knew what he had to do, and while I think it was good to publicly challenge the president during his speech, he doesn't need the aggressive nature he tries to exemplify."

"He has Dolma for the aggressiveness," Jinora smiles.

"Give the girl some time. She'll need you again. Teens are rebellious. You were," he says reminiscently.

"Oh, please! I was the best behaved of all three of us! That is ridiculous-especially coming from you!"

. . .

Soma looks into the deep fog and gives no reply. How could she? The idea of setting free prisoners sounds radical. She feels uncomfortably foreign in Li Tang's plans. What else is this woman hiding from her?

Li Tang senses the hesitation and puts a hand on Yang's sister's shoulder. "Soma," she says sweetly, "I took you in six months ago as a mere inventory checker, do you remember?"

Soma nods.

"Only later did I know you were an airbender."

"So you kept me for my airbending?"

Li Tang's face turns to that of gentle annoyance. "No, Soma. You're different from the other airbenders. You're not like them—you don't isolate yourself to achieve 'enlightenment.' You understand how the world works. You've made something of yourself in the _real_ world, not on those cult temples."

Soma's expression brightens. That was the exact reason she left her parents in the first place. "That's actually what I left for…all the other girls shaved their heads and ate carrots all day. I'm not limiting myself and my abilities for silly traditions," she chirps.

"Soma, you're exactly what I've needed for twelve years. My teacher would be so proud of me right now. He's off lost in the spirit world now, actually, probably doing some soul-searching," the slightly-graying woman notes.

"Who's your teacher?"

Li Tang hesitates. "A very discreet man taught on Honglian teachings. He passed his knowledge down on me when I was just a little girl."

"What's 'Honglian?'"

"It's a refurbished outlook on even older teachings. All will be explained in due time. Will you help me lift this fog in two days, the day before the election? It will be a full moon…and I'm sure we'll have some company along the way," Li Tang explains.

"Company? Why?"

"I've sensed the Avatar's spirit around these parts. He's starting to come closer to his realization," she says. "I'll need my waterbending skills that day."

"You can bend water?" Soma gasps.

Li Tang smirks. "Watch this."

She focuses on a gnarled tree nearby and immediately dehydrates it to the very roots; she carries its water in a stream above her head and the foliage of the tree soon crumbles. The tree itself eventually falls over and disintegrates from the lack of sufficient water. Soma looks at the terribly strong waterbending technique.

"I'd say so," Li Tang giggles.

. . .

Lu is soon blindfolded and eventually forced out of the car. As he travels up stairs, accompanied by the large men, he attempts to see through the black cloth surrounding his eyes. He can depict different light sources, but that is it. Not long after arriving from the last flight of stairs, Lu is pushed into a room and the door is closed shut. One man removes the blindfold and the other stands by the door as a means of protection.

Lu walks up nervously and sees that he is in the president's quarters. President Maiko, with a nearly-full head of gray hair, swivels in his chair and puts his hands on his deck professionally. The man glances at Lu's weak physical appearance and smirks.

"What kind of game do you think this is, Mr. Lu?" he finally says.

Lu shrugs. "I was just speaking at the Harmonic Convention because the other guy wasn't there. I can't run against you for president if I wanted to—believe me."

"So how, then, do you explain the new revolts of Harmonic citizens? We haven't had those since my first election. In fact, the entire Harmonic _Party_ has been hidden away for years. Do you think that one small speech will destroy not only my campaign, but all that I've worked for? Especially in the Spirit World!"

Lu narrows his eyes. "What exactly are you doing there?"

Maiko rolls his eyes. "I told you already—I'm establishing a small city around the portal for a small expansion to help out our lowest class. You really love conserving that terrain."

Lu looks at him with harsh judgment. After a few more exchanges of words, Maiko realizes the meeting was pointless.

"Take him back where you found him," the man says as he swivels back around in his chair. "He isn't the true threat here, and we all know who is."


	13. Chapter 13: The Next Morning

_The Next Morning_

Yang leaves early on Choju for a firebending lesson. Last night he and his friends had created a "Missing Person" report for Rumi and, albeit sleepily, Yang was up until two in the morning searching for her. Now, though, he has to move on with his day and be ready to master his firebending skills. Rumi's absence is painful, but Lin will have to take over from here. He sighs as Choju trots around blowing air out of its snout onto the steaming-hot Republic sidewalk.

While Dolma has her family and Hiroshi searches for the murder, Yang feels somewhat left out. From the very start he found himself the most important member of his friends, but life has suddenly slipped into a more self-concerning setting. If Rumi does not show up, he will just have to go out and search for her—even if his friends are busy.

. . .

Dolma walks outside Hiroshi's large estate to face her mother's patient self sitting on a bench. The girl walks up to her old teacher and sits beside her. When she greets Jinora, the old woman's face appears grave and worried.

"Is everything alright with you?" she asks.

Dolma pauses for a moment and nods her head.

"The spiritual energy is growing negative, but I'm not sure why. I've noticed some of the spirit animals are getting restless."

Dolma sighs. "Rumi's been missing for a few days."

Jinora shakes her head into focus. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

"It's none of your business, Mom. We've been through this. Why are you so clingy all of a sudden?"

"I'm losing my connection," she says.

"To me? Look, Mom, I love you and want you to be a part of my life, but I don't need your guidance. I'm fine on my own," Dolma groans.

"Not with you, Dolma. With the spirits. My connection to the spirits is fading. I can feel it; I can't explain," Jinora admits.

Dolma holds her mom's wrinkled arm and frowns apologetically. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. What's happening?"

"I'm getting old, Dolma. I'm getting old. I have so much more I need to teach you before I go. Please, Dolma, please let me finish your airbending training. I want to be the one who gives you your tattoos."

The girl looks back in sympathy as her mother's tired eyes gaze directly into her innocence. "Okay. Whatever I still need to do, I'll do it."

. . .

_That Night_

A giddy Meelo stomps around the Spirit Portal. He checks the clock towering above the city. He watches the moon slowly rise into the sky. He sees a woman's purse getting snatched by a member of the Triple Threat Triad. He does not see, however, Soma. He waits for thirty minutes and faces the embarrassing reality that he has been stood up.

As he begins walking away, a quick, quiet voice beckoned for him to come into the dark shadows rather than the Spirit Portal's light. Meelo cautiously walks over to see Soma hiding behind a telephone pole. He immediately asks her if she's in any danger, but the girl doesn't seem worried in the least bit.

"Li Tang is my manager and friend. She isn't dangerous whatsoever," the girl speaks louder.

"Pipe down before you get us thrown in a cell. Tell me this: what kind of connection does Li Tang hold with her husband? Is she close to him?"

Soma's bland eyes glance around awkwardly. "I guess?" she replies with confusion.

"What does Li Tang want with the Spirit World? Why is that family so intent on expanding human influence?"

Soma makes a gross face at her former airbending teacher. "You're just as bad as the media! I don't know, Meelo, what her relationship is with her husband. They're married, right? Go ask her yourself. Why do you airbenders have to be so restricted all the time? Are you mad she isn't restricting me?"

Meelo steps back from the conversation for a second. He rubs his graying hair and sniffs his fingers as he speaks. "I don't know what you're talking about, and even less do I know why. 'You airbenders?' Have you forgotten your own heritage?"

"The First Family is the kindest family in the nation. They accepted me despite my grudge with airbending culture. They didn't judge me and rank me on skills I don't care about. I'm the only airbender actually making a future for myself. I'm surprised Jinora didn't make us wear dog tags or identification numbers so we wouldn't try leaving or anything. You monks shelter yourselves from the most spiritual quality of humanity—change. And you know what? I'm tired of it. I don't care why you came here, Meelo, but I want you to just leave me alone. I know what I'm doing with Li Tang and I'm making the world a better place because of it!"

. . .

Yang rides Choju down the afternoon sidewalk as he comes home from his firebending lesson. Asuka said he has just about mastered the technique already, so Air is the next indefinite element he will have to bend. His mind wanders from the road and into Rumi's whereabouts. Choju's trunk begins to sweep the floor like a new vacuum cleaner and soon leads Yang off course. He pulls at the elkephant's antlers, then its fur, but it keeps walking into the darkness of a narrow alleyway. Yang eventually hops off Choju and lands on a round object lying on the ground.

When Yang moves out of the sunlight's way, he learns that the object is actually an arm—an arm connected to a limp corpse. Yang squints his eyes and sees a pruned man, completely dehydrated, and checks his wallet to find some form of identification. A driver's license for "Mr. Chan," the Harmonic Presidential Nominee. Dead. In an alleyway. Yang grabs a peanut from the sack draped over Choju's back and feeds it to the animal as he guides it out of the alleyway and over to a payphone. With all the disappearances, deaths, and mysteries, there is no telling where Rumi went.

. . .

A metalbending officer's motorcycle speeds ahead of several blaring ambulances. The woman, nearly a century old, slams on her brakes as the bike slides sideways. She takes off her helmet and shakes her hair out of its conformation. Today, she wears black glasses over her sharp eyes. Chief Lin Beifong, an experienced officer nearly as old as the United Republic itself, walks over to the scene of the crime as Yang anxiously hovers over the body.

"Lin, this is Mr. Chan, the Harmonic nominee that never showed up," he explains. "I was on my way from Asuka's training and—"

The officer rolls her eyes and cuts him off. "I don't care about your daily schedule—especially now that you don't come for me anymore. The important part is the corpse. Mr. Chan here is the next victim of the series of deaths by our national serial killer. Son, I need a murderer. You got a name?"

Yang frowns. "I can't accuse anyone."

"Then let me do my work."

. . .

As Yang walks into Hiroshi's mansion, he overhears Dolma suggest going to the media for publicity on Rumi's disappearance. He nods sadly at the proposal since their friend has been missing for a while and, although slowly, he trudges through the house and into the living room to accompany the others.

"Lin's on the case," Dolma concludes.

"She won't find Rumi. Maiko has her," Yang mutters semi-interestingly.

Dolma, Hiroshi, Lu, Asuka, Jinora, and Varrick were all sitting around together in a surprise meeting that apparently did not incorporate Yang. He sits down by Dolma anyway and causes her to tense up. She glances at him, catches his gaze, and looks directly at the blue carpeting of Hiroshi's living room.

"We were going to invite you, Yang, but…"

"But what? I'm the _Avatar_ for crying out loud," he shouts.

"We understand that," she says, "but you're really indecisive. You never know what to do."

Yang makes a face as he readjusts his position on the couch. "Indecisive? I weigh my options equally! It just so happens I take a long time, and I also tend to change my mind a lot, and even sometimes I don't pick a decision at all, but I am completely decisive—especially if I want to be!"

Jinora presses her lips together firmly. "So why do you think the president has your friend, then?"

"Today, I found Mr. Chan—the nominee from before—dead in an alley. Now Rumi is missing. Maiko already hates me for attacking him after my dream earlier and for humiliating the both of us during his campaign speech. He has every right to hold a hostage against me," he says.

"But why? What's he going to do, Yang? Why would you stand in his way? You have no power right now. No one even likes you," Hiroshi says.

"Dang," Dolma whispers.

"No offense," the waterbender adds with a raising of the hands, palms facing Yang, in self-defense.

"Sorry to break up your tension, but I was brought to and threatened by the president last night. He told me not to run against him for presidency, but I don't even meet the qualifications—right? I'm no politician," Prince Lu says with a hand on his forehead.

"Technically, there are no restrictions—none that have been ratified. There are just a bunch of strongly suggested criteria," Jinora points out.

"I was almost captured by one of those H.L. 'architects' not too long ago," Hiroshi interrupts.

"Well all of my associates and clients are dead! How am I supposed to prey on the weak if the weak keep dying?! All my investors are as dried out as my calluses!"

There is a long, awkward pause.

"You're a corrupt man, Varrick," Yang says.

"And that's the only way to do it, too! You can't make money by being nice _and_ offering deals—that's like having the Avatar make everyone happy!" After a quick realization of his harshness, he adds: "No offense, kid."

Asuka breaks another pause. "I'm calling the police," she says. "We need to end this search."

As the firebender exits the room, others begin to follow similar patterns. Dolma claims she will look for Rumi by air once again and accompanies Jinora outside. Yang takes Hiroshi outside to pay the president a little visit. With only Varrick Jr. and Prince Lu left in the room, it feels empty.

After a long silence, Varrick notices Lu's green jacket.

"Do you like dancing?" he asks the singer.

"Dancing?"

"Yeah! You know, at clubs?"

Lu smirks. "I was born to dance."

With a slight laugh, Varrick mentions women. "I can bring some _entertainment_ along…if you know what I mean."

Lu looks off into the kitchen and sees Asuka's foot peeking out the doorway. "I'm looking at it right now," he says.

. . .

The air bison's fur flies off in invisible needles. The scent is like the Ba Sing Se Zoo Dolma visited as a kid on the field trips Yang never went on. Dolma finds the smell and the memory bittersweet, but the real obstacle blocking her peacefulness is her mother. Jinora, nearly six decades of age, will not give up and just be old. She keeps acting young, important, and in control. As much as Dolma tries, she cannot shake off the woman's grip on her.

"Dolma," Jinora finally says.

"Yes, Mom?"

"There's a way to find Rumi. We both know Maiko took her somehow, we just need to know where," she continues.

Dolma nods. She figures her mother will use her special spirit powers and sense patterns in the air or something. She prepares to listen for an hour-long lecture on life and groans to herself at her mother's insistent interference.

"How, Mom?"

"You can track her spirit with the right control," Jinora whispers. "Spirit projection isn't limited to just me, you know."

Dolma's heart beats weirdly. "Actually, Mom, it is. You learned it during Harmonic Convergence and you're the only human on earth that can."

Jinora shakes her head. "When you were first born, I could feel the spiritual energy just radiating off of you. You have it in you, Dolma, I know you do. That's why I've wanted you to apply yourself."

Dolma feels her hair part through the cold wind and closes her eyes while her mother guides the bison. "What do I have to do?" she asks. The girl looks off into the distance.

"Close your eyes and focus on Rumi. Her spirit, her energy. Find it and close in on the signal," the elderly lady says in a hoarse instruction.

Dolma clenches her eyelids tightly and strains hard with the picture of Rumi, of the headband securely strapped around her head, of the first friend she developed off of the air temple.

. . .

Choju hobbles down the Republic Capital sidewalks with a smile on its face and a curiosity in its trunk. As it takes Yang and Hiroshi around the city to find the president, it stops frequently to appreciate the spirits roaming the city and littering the roads.

"There are tons of spirits out today," Yang says.

"They're waiting for something," Hiroshi decides to himself.

Yang hops off of the elkephant's back and goes to speak with civilians about the president. Hiroshi, meanwhile, sits on Choju and messes with the water he keeps in his canteen. Perhaps Lin already got Maiko and everything is all over?

A scream is heard as Yang speaks to a woman about President Maiko. Both Hiroshi and the Avatar look over at the outburst and see a gang of HL-uniformed thugs running toward them. Hiroshi jumps off Choju and joins Yang's side as he bends the water from a nearby flowing fountain of stone. Hiroshi swipes his hilt into the air and creates a water sword with the newfound resources. The water soon freezes to ice. Yang, meanwhile, tosses fireballs from his punches and watches as some of the half-dozen men dodge the attacks.

Yang dodges an ice spear and kicks the ground, bringing up a chunk of pavement, and bends the material at the uniformed man. He falls back and flinches from the attack. Yang bends the pavement weapon and moves it in front of him in time to block a blast of fire from a nearby opponent.

"Little help here?" he begs Hiroshi.

Hiroshi Sato dodges a jolt of electricity and swipes the ice sword against a man's left arm, ripping his uniform at the tear and causing a trickle of blood to peek out of the skin. Korra's grandson dodges a tossed boulder and throws several ice daggers that catch one of the men by pinning him to the wall of a building.

One man nearly hits a spirit with his own ice daggers, however Yang quickly firebends and melts the cold weapon to avoid hurting the poor spirit. For just a split second, Yang and the creature see eye-to-eye.

Yang knocks back another boulder and slams into another two men. He then bends a large pole into a javelin and hurls it at the remaining villains. They watch and struggle as the sharp weapon, now shaped like a pencil, comes straight for them. However, out of benevolence, Yang, at the last second, morphs the pole into a simple trap. He cheers in relief and catches the sight of a fiery palm about to strike the back of his neck.

The Avatar falls off balance and lands on the ground hard. He watches as Hiroshi drains the water out of a plant and causes it to decay. The water is used to splash the man and encase him in a frozen ice sculpture. When the man's hand cools down, Yang moves out of the way of the sculpture's falling path and produces a sigh as a result.

In the background, sirens can be heard. Someone had called Officer Lin for sure. As the sirens get closer, Lin's gray motorcycle speeds down the road and comes to a screeching halt in front of the sidewalk battle between the HL and Yang and Hiroshi.

Lin looks the situation over and has some of her men take the uniformed thugs away. She looks at her metalbending graduate and his friend with indifference. "Busy day. Need a ride?"

Choju shakes its head in confusion and snorts out a trumpet sound from its trunk as it is pushed into the back of a police van's prison cell.

. . .

Yang and Hiroshi thank Lin as she drops them off at the station. Choju is taken out of the car and towards its owner as the other vehicles pull into the station's garage. Lin's wrinkled, scowling face slackens into a small grin as she prepares to give them some news.

"We have the president inside for questioning," she says to them quietly. "I wouldn't normally tell you something like this, but the media's already writing up stories. May as well. I heard Mako's daughter has already submitted her article to _The Republic_."

Yang tunes her out after he hears the president's name. "Can I go in there?" he asks.

"No, kid, you can't. We have rules," Lin says with sarcasm.

"I'm the Avatar. I should be able to go in there," he continues.

"Stop it, Yang," Lin warns.

Yang goes to the front door and swings it open. Lin follows behind him, but Hiroshi stays on Choju in near disbelief. After a long pause, the waterbender decides to urge the brown-furred elkephant onward home. Yang knows the way, so he'll come back fine.

. . .

The young Avatar struggles against the platinum door that blocks the police department section from the room for questioning, so he instead snatches a pair of keys from the front desk, much to the police officers' disdain, and opens the door quickly. One of the policeman threaten to detain him, but Lin shakes her head and holds her arm against his chest.

"That's Korra 2.0 right there. Let him do whatever so he doesn't rampage," she explains.

Yang walks through the doorway and shuts the door with a strong push of the hand. He turns around, slicks back his brown, spiked-up hair, and views the few people sitting around a room of glass—the glass where you can only see inside the room. Yang finds a shocked policeman and an indifferent old man sitting across from each other; while the former sat in a comfortable plastic rolling chair, the latter occupied a school chair with platinum handcuffs incarcerating him to the table.

"Oh, great! It's you again," Maiko mutters.

Yang smashes his hand down on the table, frightening both the cop and the president. His skin is red from the impact of the hard table, but he doesn't let the others know that. He narrows his eyes and looks straight through Maiko's empty pupils. They looked like black holes.

"Where's Rumi?" he asks calmly.

"Who?"

Yang raises his fist and slams it hard on the table once again. "Don't you play dumb with me. Where is she?"

President Maiko shrugs. His black suit has grayed with dust, his hair is white from both stress and age, yet his posture is still that of an influential representative.

"I didn't do anything, Avatar. You pesky Harmonics are trying to ruin my image? Well, you've gone too far. You brought the police into this? I did nothing! I'm going to destroy Lin Beifong for arresting me without any evidence whatsoever. It's biased and embarrassing," Maiko demands.

"We're just questioning you, Maiko. Just questioning," the composed policeman counters.

Yang grabs the neck of Maiko's dress shirt and lifts him up as far as the handcuffs allow. Maiko smirks at the violent gesture—he knows Yang is being watched at this very second. Any damage done and the kid's part of the cycle will go ahead and move on.

"Where is she? Where is my friend? And how did your group kill those innocent people?" Yang asks angrily.

"My group? Oh, you mean the architects you scared before? They are designing seventeen new buildings in the Spirit World and cleaning out the occupancies of said spirits at this very minute."

Yang ignores the last part. "How did you dehydrate those bodies? Why are you shipping supplies to your wife's tea shop? Why does she need all that equipment?"

Maiko seems rather confused. "Dehydrate? I can't suck the water out of them. That sounds like a fantasy or something. And my wife's business affairs are none of my business. I don't even know what she's doing with whatever she gets."

Yang drops Maiko's shirt and sits down in his chair. He leans in toward the table and puts an elbow on top in order to caress his face. His mouth is open, an ancient cave finally earning some light after being exposed to nothing. A match was lit. Something clicked. Was it "dehydrate?" No, it was "suck the water." Water. Waterbending. Hiroshi had dehydrated a bush earlier to fend off against those men. Hiroshi's father runs a business that ships equipment. Hiroshi wouldn't kill innocent men. All the other buyers are dead…except, well, except—

. . .

"Just imagine Rumi's face. Grasp the light in the image and focus hard on what you see. Don't lose track of the face when you lose yourself."

Dolma breathes in deeply and crosses her legs to meditate on the air bison's back. Jinora anxiously glances back to look at her daughter, but she must also guide the air bison around to find their friend. She sees Dolma breathing consistently and wonders if it already worked. Is she already this powerful? No, she can't be. She doesn't even want to learn about spirit history, let alone have a stronger connection with them. Jinora smiles at her Spirit History class. Almost all of the six students in twenty years have loved of—well, four of them have. It's a good class.

Dolma suddenly breathes in deeper and remains in a meditative pose. Jinora nods slightly at the success—Dolma's somewhere in the world, the only question is: where?

. . .

Meditation was boring until Dolma felt herself get up. It was overwhelming—she thought she was standing up on an air bison mid-flight. That's a death wish for pretty much anyone. However, she opened her eyes to find herself a light blue apparition. She pokes at herself and doesn't notice anything quite different. She feels her feet. They're still there.

She's in the Spirit World. More specifically, near a giant valley of fog. Dolma remembers vague mentions of the fog—the Fog of Lost Souls—in one of her mother's lectures. It's not a good place to be. Anyway, Dolma turns around to see a sleeping redheaded girl tied up against the trunk of a tree. Her headband is on crooked, however Dolma pays no attention to it. She looks in Rumi's face. Loose and limp, the girl looks completely exhausted.

Dolma hears a few voices and hides behind the tree quickly. The kidnapper's identity is about to be revealed. Dolma readies herself to confront Maiko, to attack him head-on.

However, she disappears the second she sees that it's actually Li Tang and Soma conversing along the edge of the Fog.

Li Tang is the real culprit.


	14. Chapter 14: The Day Before - Finale Pt 1

He had gone over the plan several times in his head. He knew every detail of what he had to do and knew every risk he'd have to take. The only issue he has is the execution. Yang's heart beats faster and faster the more he thinks of the danger, the thrill, the adrenaline rush. He would have to defeat Li Tang to get his friend back. So many questions run through his head. Why Rumi? What's she doing? It's the day before the election, but only President Maiko is running. The Harmonic Party has no representation whatsoever—his father isn't exactly candidate material.

Whatever the reasoning, his plan at least made sense. He and Hiroshi would climb into one of the Varrick Industries trucks and be driven to Li Tang's location without being seen by anyone. Then they would wait and run to find Rumi in the tea shop. After, Yang would have Li Tang arrested and the Republic Nation would be free of corruption. Right? The idea seems perfect on paper, no flaws, no life-threatening, problematic issues.

With optimism on his mind, Yang grabs hold of the metallic handle of the Varrick Industries truck and swings it open. Hiroshi had already found out which trucks were being driven to the shop through his father's information, so phase one was complete. He helps the solemn waterbender into the vehicle's back and slips in himself. Voices can be heard nearby, so Yang quickly shuts the truck doors and hides behind the crates of weaponry.

He grabs a small bag, tan in coloration, from his pocket and feels of the contents inside. The metallic marbles were his bullets, his bending the weapon. In his other pocket is a small rock—the same rock he had slammed Bolin within what seems like years ago. An object of sentiment, the rock was proof of his bending capabilities, of his successes.

Hiroshi, meanwhile, sloshes the canteen of water hanging by his side. His sword hilt clangs against the metal base of the van bed and Yang scolds him to be quiet. Hiroshi, a teen originally involved in crime, opened up so fast to Dolma. Is it the spirituality? What is Yang missing? Hiroshi is always so aware of everything going on—even if he is clueless. Perhaps his connection to Korra has enlightened him in some way, but doesn't Yang have a stronger connection with her? Isn't he Korra in a man's body? He shivers at the thought, the creepiness in the idea, but inside he knew he's proud to belong to such strong spiritual roots.

The vehicle bumps along the dirt path leading up to the Spirit World, or perhaps the path within the Spirit World. There aren't any windows, just darkness, so Yang has no idea where he is. What if they got on the wrong truck? He ignores the possibility; he has to focus on Rumi. Rumi, the girl he noticed back in Ba Sing Se. Rumi, the girl he couldn't not think about. Rumi, Rumi, Rumi. He smiles at her face. Rumi.

Choju was locked up tight by Hiroshi just last night. Once Yang eventually did come home, he made sure his trusted partner was kept safe. There's no telling what the H.L. would do. Dolma, though, was nowhere to be found that night. He can only think the best, that she's out there with her mom somewhere, but he fears the worst deep inside.

Yang lights a small fire with the snap of his fingers and balances it in his palm. He sees Hiroshi's rather pale face, which is weird considering his waterbending lineage, and looks around the crates. Armor everywhere. Weapons: swords, bombs, nets, artillery—everything. This is no ordinary tea shop. Yang is sure of that. However, he begins to wonder what her ulterior motive would involve; surely she is not going to shoot everyone up in her tea shop.

He can see it now: "Tea Shop Massacre" will make the headlines of the front page of _The Republic_. Asuka would love to write that, probably. He dismisses the stupid idea and focuses back on the situation at hand.

"Dozens of spirits have been slaughtered for no apparent reason," he whispers to break the silence. "They should be left alone."

Hiroshi blinks slowly and lifts the corner of his mouth sympathetically. "It's hard to preserve the past. My mom always told me change will force its way in. Traditional views aren't current, and humanity always manages to come up with a new idea. Even Avatar Aang took a section of the Earth Kingdom and established Republic City all those years ago. Times change, Yang. We may have to find another solution."

Yang ignores the last part. "Where is your mom?"

Hiroshi's eyes hit the floor. "She moved back to the Fire Nation with her boyfriend as far as I know," he says.

Silence permeates the back of the truck for an extended period of time.

"My dad ruined our family, but he will not help ruin the Spirit World," he tells Yang.

The truck stops. They've arrived. The halt was abrupt; the driver has no talent in his stops. Yang never felt the Spirit World's usual fuzziness, which is peculiar, but he sighs and prepares to jump and run when the doors open. He and Hiroshi remain hidden behind the boxes, but each of them are in the stance of a predator.

. . .

Dolma snaps out of her projection. Just like that, her blue image disappears. In the blink of an eye, she finds herself back in her body. She falls to her back on the hairy bison. Jinora doesn't notice. Dolma rubs her forehead, a headache brewing inside, and sighs loudly.

"It's Li Tang, mom. She's got Rumi tied up and I think they're in the Spirit World. She's going to do something big," she finally says.

Jinora perks up near the front of the bison. "Where?" she asks.

"Some foggy place; I think it's that Fog of Lost Souls you told us about back in school. There was so much fog," she says in defeat.

Jinora, now facing Dolma's serious face, is drained of color. Her old eyes grow big, almost big enough to pop, and her hair seems to tingle on end. She turns the bison around with a large shout and looks back over to Dolma.

"We have to hurry. Now."

. . .

Prince Lu, exhausted from dancing with Varrick in one of those clubs, catches his breath outside. He leans a hand against the wall and heaves in and out deeply. He blinks several times, hoping to regain a rhythm, a consistency, in his breathing. A series of television screens are lined up in one of the windows of a store. He looks at them and sees a picture of Maiko being taken by the police.

He smiles at the image. _Lose that reputation, lose that election!_ The show turns to a small clip of, in the background of the Police Department, Yang attacking Maiko in the questioning room. The news reporter claims the Avatar is involving Maiko in legal trouble to sabotage the election. Across the street, many young adults can be heard by the police station in a large revolt—against Yang.

. . .

The doors never open. Yang waits for another half hour (at least by his sense of time's passing) and eventually kicks the doors open with his metalbending. They swing quickly and bounce on their hinges back to shut them in, but he and Hiroshi are already working their way out of the van. They jump out of the back, shut the doors, and look at their surroundings.

Just as Yang expected, they are right in front of the H.L. Café. They both hide on either side of the doorway, and, by Yang's signal, they jump inside and prepare for battle. Yang slams to the ground and pulls out a marble as Hiroshi waterbends the liquid out of his flask. No one is in the café; it's empty. They check the back: empty. They check the back entrance: empty. There is nothing there. Yang walks back outside and, in the distance, sees his sister gliding further into the Spirit World. On an impulse, he follows Soma. She knows something.

Because the van is empty and the keys were left in (which was a very lazy error on Li Tang's part), Hiroshi jostles the keys until the car starts. Yang hops in the side, shuts the passenger door, and buckles up as his friend puts the pedal to the floor and blasts through the Spirit World plains. Yang notices a uniformed man walk out of a portable bathroom and start running behind them. He loses their trail eventually.

Soon enough, after the crazy driving, they stop abruptly once Soma lands in the distance. Yang and Hiroshi hop out of the car and crawl through bushes into the distance, near the edge of some woods, and look around at the scene before them.

Yang sees Soma walk over to several figures near a field of opaque fog. Upon further inspection, he sees her, Li Tang, Rumi, Varrick (which agitated Hiroshi immensely), and Shaw, the firebender from Varrick's and Li Tang's meeting. Hiroshi nudges the Avatar and points off to the left. They both notice Meelo, who must have also followed Soma, watching the people as well. Once Li Tang starts talking, Yang pulls through with his obligation to creep around.

. . .

"Why did you kidnap Yang's friend again?" Soma asks with hesitation.

"She's friends with the Avatar—if you've kept up with the news, you'd understand. I was warned about the Avatar's ability to meddle. I'm covering all my bases by keeping myself a hostage. It's my solemn oath to the secrecy of the Honglian to free those in the Fog, and I can't have some arrogant child stop me."

"Avatar? Yang's not the Avatar. The closest to airbending he's ever gotten is a sneeze, and those weren't even impressive," Soma jests. "Besides, the cycle was destroyed."

There is a silence. Shaw can be seen conversing with Varrick about the missing weaponry, to which Varrick replies with a short temper and moderate humor.

Soma looks dully into the fog. "Why are these souls trapped, these specifically?"

"Soma, spirits and humans can do one thing in common: hate other humans. These pitiful victims have been trapped for mistakes, nothing more. Your parents would put you in here if you still lived on that island acting like you are now. Mistakes, misconceptions. Humanity has rejected its own kind based on opinions and morality. Do these people deserve an eternal prison? Would you?"

Soma appears sheepish. "I guess not." She brushes back her dark hair and feels like a little girl being taught everything all over again. She's uncomfortable with Li Tang talking down to her like her employee again.

Li Tang's eyes narrow. In the distance, she sees movement. An older man is watching them somewhere. She glances back at the moon just to make sure—yes, it's full. She smiles.

Meelo is brought to her in a cringing state. He's being controlled against his own will—his blood is moving against the pleas of his brain. He floats over to her and slams to the floor in a groveling state. Li Tang smiles and grabs a small blue jacket to drape over her shoulders.

"Hello, Meelo," she smiles.

"Li Tang," he mumbles through painful yelps.

"Bloodbending's never fun, is it? Well, it's the easiest method to detect running water in the body. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. Bloodbending has created a terrible stereotype for advanced waterbenders." Li Tang looks over to some of the dozen uniformed grunts. "Guards, do your jobs and I'll do mine," she snaps.

The men tie Meelo up near Rumi and the two lock eyes—a lock Li Tang shivers from. Friendship, understanding. Humans can't have friends; not when their friends are liable to stab them in the back.

"Come on, now," Varrick says with impatience. "You're going a bit too far—very far from our contract. If you don't let these people go, Li Tang, I won't be associated with anything else you do. And I will _also_ release the records into the public."

The woman smiles. "I can feel your blood pumping faster and faster, Varrick. You're getting scared. Typical. Your inherited trait from your father has always been cowardice. Never wanting to face the consequences of your corrupt actions."

Varrick is suddenly caught by surprise and succumbs to the might of the grunts. He yells out for help, and feels deep inside the one thing he's always been afraid of: being alone. Betrayal has taken his wife, his son, and now his life. At least he has a legacy. A legacy. Isn't his son his legacy?

"Stop it!" Soma screams, but she is slapped to the ground by Li Tang's thirty-year-old palm. She squeals from the impact and immediately feels of her burning face.

"Never tell me what to do again, Soma, or you will end up down in that fog of blasted souls!" Li Tang spits.

Hiroshi suddenly notices that Yang has started to run up to the others. He fusses at the danger, the recklessness, but the Avatar appears to just shrug off everything. Hiroshi later finds himself doing the same thing.

"Yang, you're going to get yourself killed!"

Yang looks back. "I hope so!"

His face just misses a fireball from Shaw. The near-death experience causes adrenaline to fill his body almost immediately. Shaw calls out to Li Tang just as Yang feels the rush through his body.

"He's here," the man says.

Li Tang turns around to inspect her opponent. "Ah, the Avatar. I figured you'd come."

Yang ignores her acknowledgment. "Why are you doing this? Why? And Soma, why are you helping?"

He hears a loud sigh from the older woman's mouth. The sigh is a mix of boredom, expression, and sarcasm.

"You had a rough childhood, yes?"

He says nothing.

"Well _my_ childhood was a rough one. Living in the Southern Water Tribe was lonely, and my daddy was a fisherman first and a father second. Sort of like—" she pauses, glances over at the rushing Hiroshi, and grins, "—sort of like you and your father, kid. Anyway, I ventured out into the tundra and saw a beautiful column of light, light I had never even seen before. Thanks to Avatar Korra, your past life, Yang, I was able to go into the Spirit World with ease. Alone. A little girl—hazardous? Reckless? No supervision by the Avatar, that's for sure. I entered the portal and quickly got lost, of course. Spirits are disgusting, vulgar things, and their habitat is a pit of random stupidity. I eventually stumbled upon, after getting swallowed by a large animal, a field of fog—the thickest fog I'd ever seen. There at the edge was a man, barely visible, talking to himself. He must have been there for decades. I pulled him out and nurtured him to health. He suffered a memory lapse, but I soon learned he was a spirit himself—a spirit that used to be a man, and a man cursed by the hands of another. This man was in debt to me. I had saved him from eternal suffering. He cared for me like the grandfather I never had, the grandfather that didn't die in frozen water. Well, he coaxed me into running away from home. I lived here, in the Spirit World, for twelve of my thirty years. What do you think about that, Yang? I lived with the very things that ate me for over a decade."

Yang glances around at everyone awkwardly. "That's great?"

"No, it's not. But I had at least found something interesting that loved me like a granddaughter. He told me he was part of this old organization—he called it the Honglian—and began teaching me the truth to reality and human nature. I knew vengeance was required against this fog spirit—and every other one, really—would be needed. Maiko, an up-and-coming lawyer six years ago, was a perfect route to getting the materials I'd need. With a means to destroy the spirit world and dismantle the humanity of the United Republic, I could finally free the others trapped in the fog."

Yang makes a disgusted face. "This is more inhumane than the past, Li Tang," he says.

"No—did you know that some of those people in the fog are still people? Not all of them are spirits. Most of them were thrown in there by spirits back when the portals were closed. Their bodies are in this coma-like state. It's torture. They could be saved and preserved. The spirits are weaker when human emotions overcome their expectations. They are weaker in environments where they are lesser in number. I can set things right in here and then out in our world. I am part of the Honglian for my dear friend, and I will serve him well."

Yang sees, at a much higher altitude, Jinora and Dolma flying on a sky bison. He keeps quiet about them and distracts Li Tang for the time being.

"You can't be serious," he says. "These people are criminals somehow. They are there for a reason!"

Soma screams again at the edge of the fog. Yang sees her body quaking under the pressure of something and quickly realizes it's Li Tang's bloodbending.

"Your sister is the first airbender willing to help me clear this fog. Now if she ever changes her mind, I can force her in place and make her keep clearing the area," the woman explains.

Yang flicks a marble into the air and bends it at an H.L. grunt that was inching toward Hiroshi. The man falls over and screams in pain as he pries the embedded marble from the area of his ribs. Hiroshi turns around to confront the man.

The Avatar then dodges a stream of water that Li Tang bends from a nearby pond. He barely ducks from the blast.

"You're overly trusting, Avatar," the bender smirks.

"What do you mean?" Yang asks in a puzzled tone.

"Mr. Sato here is a thief and a coward," she says with a gesture to Hiroshi.

"He was just trying to get his father's attention!"

"Ha! His father helped me out in the first place! What about your airbender friend? Didn't she run away from her mom and have a Missing Person's report for a year?"

"Dolma needed space!"

"Not so innocent, now is she? What about your lovable sister? She never believed in you. She thought you were just as much of a misfit as the other airbenders did. She never loved you."

"Soma's not exactly being a good airbender now anyways!"

Li Tang acts overly-dramatic in surprise. "You have that much understanding? You have excuses for everyone! Oh, I would love to break your young Avatar spirit. Bring her in, Shaw!" she shouts.

While one man first brings in a cage containing the exhausted Tako, another strides up behind him. Yang turns around slowly to see the tall firebender with short, black hair gripping a struggling, yet weak, Rumi over his shoulder. He sets her against a rock nearby and rips her old, worn headband off her sweating head.

The heartbroken Yang feels like screaming, crying, laughing, and ripping his face off when he sees what's underneath the headband. He's seen the markings before. The sideways, elongated eye. The three different branches of red on either side. The little circle at the bottom to cap it all up. The tattoo.

It explains so much. She always wore the headband—no matter what. She went to those waterbending healing places, Asuka's training, and did her own firebending moves. She always acted sad, she never did talk about anything, and she was always so distant about her own past. When Yang puts it all together, he can do nothing but state the obvious.

"Rumi, you're a…a…a Combustion Bender?"

. . .

Jinora and Dolma descend to the ground as many grunts come to attack. Dolma swipes the air and knocks many of them down hard. Jinora blasts air to send one man flying off into the distance, and Dolma giggles when she sees him fly into the spirit portal. Her mom's in a serious mood.

Jinora knocks several more back and, as the fight progresses, it starts to get overwhelming. Dolma's mother looks at her and tells her to go back and get Asuka. Dolma wonders about Lin, about the police, but disregards them in exchange for obeying her mother. She bends herself a scooter and flies off back toward the spirit portal.

. . .

Yang stares at the tattoo in amazement. "You never told me you could bend…why?"

Rumi attempts to get on her feet, but flinches. "I can't. I mean, I can, but I can't."

Li Tang coughs and grabs Yang's attention. "Your little girlfriend has hidden the most dangerous weapon from you; she's capable of anything at this point. Lying, deceiving, betraying. Face it, Avatar. We get each other. We've had rough lives and can't trust anyone—I had to kill Varrick's other partners just to strike a deal! It's okay, though. We both know the truth—no human is innocent. Likewise, the betrayal of the spirits makes them just as evil. You know this, Yang. You know this because you can't airbend yet. Don't think I don't know. Your idiot of a sister has already gossiped about you enough."

Yang looks behind Li Tang and sees a bunch of uniformed men carrying a defeated Jinora over to where Varrick and Meelo lie. His hands tremble. She's challenged his manhood, his friendship, his spirituality, and his identity.

For a second, he agrees inside. She's right; he's been humiliated in front of everyone multiple times. His biological father didn't even want him, and he killed his own mother. His parents humiliated him by foolishly putting him in airbending school. His schoolmates made fun of him. Dolma made him feel terrible through her pity. Kaze was always right. Bolin was shocked Yang could do anything. Rumi couldn't tell the truth and Hiroshi is always so shady in what he does. Even his sister isn't like who she used to be. Maybe humanity is pointless, disgusting, and unworthy. Maybe it is killing itself, eating away at even the most decent people. The spirits, too. They live off of humans and give nothing in return. They would not help in the wars, the genocides, _Harmonic Convergence_.

After that second, Yang knows everything he thought was a complete and utter lie.

"Do you really think you can just come in and manipulate your way to the top of society? That you can corrupt the human-spirit relationship? That you can just expect sympathy for your efforts and destroy everything the Avatar cycle stands by as?"

Li Tang breathes in deeply, her tanned skin becoming glossed in sweat from both bloodbending the whole time and the intensity of Yang's words. "You are about unleash a powerful force, young Avatar. Use your spirit to prove to me that spirits are corrupt. Go on, do it. Prove it. I'm begging. Once you kill me, others will revolt. I've affected so many already. Go on! Do it! Go into the Avatar State!"

Yang's pupils flicker white. "That you can pinpoint who I am based on my past lives?"

"Fight me, boy. Show humanity the corruption in spirituality. Perhaps they will praise my vengeance! Go on, Yang!"

"Do it and Rumi will get it," Shaw speaks up with a flame protruding from his finger—right at Rumi's throat.

The Avatar's eyes flicker. They go white, they go back. Rumi, world. Rumi, world. He finally closes his eyes.

"Protecting the world comes first. I know _my_ path," he says.

"You're a very bland Avatar, Yang. I'm getting bored."

"Oh, I'm not fighting you as the Avatar," he says. "I'm doing this as Yang. I know who _I _am. I know my identity, and nothing you do will change my mind. Get ready, Li Tang."

Yang opens his eyes, revealing the deep jade of the kid sitting outside on the playground that day—the day he first bent the earth. He spreads his legs apart, puts one arm above his head, and quickly changes form so his other hand protrudes out right in front of him with the right hand at his breastbone. At his left hand's fingertips, a giant ball is created—a ball of wind. Yang focuses on the wind and creates an even bigger buildup of air energy. He smiles as the others gawk at his climactic success and raises his eyebrows at his enemy.

"Get ready, Li Tang, because you're about to be blown away."

A huge blast of air escapes the sphere and knocks Li Tang far back into the ground, knocking her off her feet and causing her to land at the edge of the fog. Standing in front of her, tall and proud, is Avatar Yang, master of three elements.


	15. Chapter 15: Freedom - Finale Pt 2

She hops off her spherical air scooter and begins walking on the heads of civilians. Her dark brown airbender hair, now nearly to her elbows, flows freely as she lightly presses a foot on every arrogant cranium while moving swiftly through the air. Her fierce brown eyes graze the ignorance of those below her, leading to a rather benevolent backing-off. No one could combat those brown eyes, determined and soul-piercing as they are.

She had done it. Jinora knew she could. In a way, so did she. She was always the best at airbending, though she never followed the rules to earn her tattoos early. That part of her was not inheritance, not the spirit projection she had completed. That part was from experience. After all, airbenders appreciate freedom. What is freedom with unnecessary rules and earthly attachments? Dolma always wanted to feel like the air, fierce, yet gentle, and, in a way, she succeeds in her strides to Prince Lu and firebender Asuka.

With freedom on her mind, she frighteningly asks the same question as Li Tang: why _are _those people restricted forever? Is it righteous or just another inhumane act far greater than their own? She decides to keep her opinions to herself as she approaches the adults she so desperately wished to converse with.

Dolma, unfocused on the head count below her, steps into an empty gap and rips into the crowd with a burst of wind. She slams against the ground and skids slightly on the concrete. Now there are scrapes on her hands and knees. Too much freedom.

Lu and Asuka come running.

"What's wrong?" asks the earth-ethnic celebrity.

"Maiko's in jail now?" Asuka asks with a twist of her ember-colored hair.

Dolma shakes her head at the comment. "He is, but he shouldn't be. I'm pretty sure he's innocent. Li Tang is trying to free the spirits in the Fog of Lost Souls. I still don't understand why, but she's apparently part of some sort of terror group or something. That's the way she was talking."

Lu offers a glance to Asuka. "Terrorist group?"

Dolma nods. "The Honglian?"

Both adults gulp audibly and the color drains from their faces. Lu makes a dash for a phone booth and motions for them to run without him. He rushes a hand through his now-sweaty brown hair and exhales in the dirty boxed-room's glass. A slight fog spreads the glass until it is wiped out by the air. Once the police department finally picks up, Lu's out of words to say. He hangs the phone up, leans against the closed set of doors in the red booth, and slides down the glass until he's sitting with his head low between his hands. The Honglian.

. . .

Asuka and Dolma push and shove to make their way to the Spirit Portal. As they trot through the turmoil of rush hour, Asuka begins to speak up.

"The Honglian—that's not the real name. It's a branch of the real organization," she says between gasps for air. "They were _sure_ those people were wiped out. After the Earth Queen's demise, wouldn't they finally get things right with those people?

"What?" replies a confused Dolma.

"These are dangerous people, Dolma. The White Lotus was supposed to efficiently destroy any trace of their influence. My father, Mako, talked about it a long time ago. I always thought it was just another of his creepy conspiracy theories," she says with an internal guilt in mind. "Once he heard the name, he became trapped with an incurable addiction to solving the 'puzzle.' Back during Korra's time, one of the worst threats she faced was against a terror group."

"What happened?" Dolma urges.

Both women slow down once the Spirit World came into view.

"Anarchy."

. . .

"Have you ever heard of the Red Lotus?" Li Tang asks as she gets up from the harsh blow.

Yang looks over to see Soma's controlled body still removing the fog. It's obviously resisting her bending, but the fog is definitely clearing. He sees several bodies walking around aimlessly.

Shaw opens the back of his supplies van and removes all the supplies. He walks over to the fog and prepares to grab hands and bodies. Yang knows Li Tang is stalling, but he needs to understand. He has no choice but to wait.

Hiroshi, meanwhile, leaps near Shaw and slams him into the ground, almost into the fog, and watches as the man struggles to get back up. Hiroshi's arm is cut near the right elbow. His left leg is smeared with blood. Whatever kind of fighting they're doing, it's very physical.

Yang feels the pressure of the air build up around him. He needs to know, though. He has to. He sighs. "I don't care what flower color you prefer. You aren't taking those prisoners."

She smiles. "You're interested, I can tell. Well, Avatar, the Red Lotus is a group dedicated to providing freedom to the worlds."

Jinora speaks up from her binding to the captured Varrick, Meelo, and Rumi. She barely manages to articulate: "I thought they were peaceful to spirits?"

Li Tang watches Yang's airbending hand and keeps speaking. "Times change. Spirits have shown no willingness to coexist, so they need not exist at all."

Yang grimaces. "You're wrong."

"Prove it," she says.

Li Tang ducks from a blast of air and bends a stream of water to free Yang's hand, causing him to lose balance and struggle to melt the thick ice blocking access to his hand. He tries melting the ice, but it takes too long, so he grabs a rock and smashes it repeatedly. He then bends the rock and hurls it at the woman's head. She ducks and sends a blast of water to further push Yang away. She begins walking toward him as he punches bursts of fire and air at her. She barely flinches from the attacks.

"Who's your boss?" Yang asks.

Li Tang smiles. "A past friend of yours, Avatar."

Yang stomps a foot and causes a small tremor between them. "Who is your boss?"

"Ask your grandma Jinora about a man named 'Aiwei.' Fascinating human, actually. Did you know he could tell if you were lying? Then again, you don't even know your full power. I guess you wouldn't know."

Suddenly, she outstretches her right arm to a small puddle and elongates its length with a water skin of weaponry. She slaps Yang hard with the force of the water, but he rebuttals with a blast of fire to cancel it into steam. Lying on the ground, Yang kicks a leg sideways to slam a rock and knock her down. He raises the earth to grab one of her legs. It holds for a second until ice from inside destroys it.

Out of arrogance, Yang gets one of his marbles from the bag and begins spinning the metallic ball between his hands. He smirks at Li Tang's face as he launches the bullet-like attack nearly at her throat. The woman, however, summons a wave thick enough to destroy the bullet's momentum and cause its effect to be minimal.

"That was actually a lethal shot," she acknowledges. "I like your moxie."

Yang, realizing he almost killed the woman, gasps at his own actions. Is he malevolent? Too reckless?

. . .

The two enter the Spirit World in full conversation.

"The Red Lotus has driven my father crazy," Asuka recites.

Dolma frowns. "I thought he passed away?"

Asuka stops for a short breath. "He's not dead. Mako's not dead. He faked it so he could go in the Fire Nation undercover. He thinks the Fire Lord is under some shady corruption."

Dolma sees the bending battles ahead of her and propels herself forward with a gust of wind. Her stomach churns like the softening of butter and she worries about all the possible outcomes, but all of them somehow involve her mother.

. . .

Lu hangs up the phone and exits the booth. Feeling much better after the explanation to Lin, he leans his back against the box and wipes the sweat from his forehead. His clothes are drenched. Prince Wu, his father, told him secondhand stories as a kid. Now, while most of them involved singing or dancing, there has to be some truth behind them. What is Li Tang capable of?

He begins walking to the portal when a couple of teenagers stop to look him over.

"Hey, sweaty guy! Can I get your picture?" one of them says with a sideways grin to his friend.

Lu rolls his eyes and replies with a "sure." He puts a sweaty arm around the kid, senses his flinching, and smirks at the embarrassment he faces. However, he isn't made fun of. Weird. Teenagers are supposed to be the butts of society.

"We're big fans," the other explains after observing the scene through his camera lens.

"I see," Lu nods. "I love the joy my music brings to my fans."

The kid under his arm bursts with emotion. "No offense, dude, but I hate your music."

"Oh."

"However, your speech the other day was super inspirational. Harmonicism was completely lame until you flipped the world off with your words."

Lu frowns. "Thank…you?"

"Are you sure you aren't a politician?"

"His name's on the ballot, Hanto. Of _course_ he's a politician."

Lu's eyes bulge. His skin turns clammy. "Really?"

"Yeah, man, you're the only Harmonic representative left. With President Maiko in jail, it's gee-gee (or at least Lu thought he said gee-gee). Congrats, Mr. President."

. . .

Yang kicks a boulder that smacks the woman back to their starting places. He has taken over now. With a rocky, unfocused start, Yang has finally captured the advantage. His eyes momentarily flicker white again.

Li Tang senses his temporary weakness and takes it upon herself to bloodbend him. She forces him to his knees as he struggles to maintain his nervous system. The blood is countering it, forcing itself the way it wants to. He screams in sheer terror, his eyes losing their glaze, and he struggles to keep himself from dehydrating. He feels the water, the precious saturation of his life, trying to slip away. He yearns to sip from Hiroshi's flask, to gulp down the lakes in the Spirit World's distance. His life feels like a vacuum is sucking it out from under him. In his struggle, Yang breathes a flamethrower so strong it scorches Li Tang's fingers (who soon heal, much to his dismay) and causes her to lose control. His eyes flicker again and shoves clawed hands into the air.

As a result, several appendage-like bits of earth catch Li Tang and pull her down. Her body lies limp underneath rubble as he inspects his work. He rubs his oscillating eyes and gasps for a break.

Yang senses activity from behind and barely dodges a fireball from Shaw, who smiles with his unshaven face. Hiroshi is struggling to keep up with him.

"Hiroshi, stop lounging around and stick with Shaw!"

Yang returns the fireball with a boulder and looks back at Li Tang as she struggles inside the rock prison.

"It's not easy when he's a lot older than me!"

Hiroshi gets his hilt and slices at Shaw with his ice sword, leading to a cut on the man's wrist. The waterbender smirks as he finally gains some sort of successful attack.

"I'm facing the freaking boss lady!" Yang retorts. "Player two is always a let-down."

"Player _two?!_"

Yang laughs and rips the driver's door from Shaw's truck. He bends the metal into a rod shape and begins attacking the Honglian members that, after having defeated Jinora, are now advancing to Hiroshi.

When Shaw is knocked back, Hiroshi runs to his father.

"Where are the supplies?"

Varrick nods to the back of the truck. "Check there."

As Hiroshi runs, he nearly gets pelted with a icicle spears. Yang, however, firebends just in time to melt the weapons. The two of them run to grab supplies. Hiroshi grabs a knife and runs over to the captured veterans while Yang returns empty-handed to face the rest of them.

Hiroshi cuts Rumi's bindings first, then Jinora's, then Meelo's, and finally his father's. The ropes were tight, almost tight enough to cause blood to surface, but Hiroshi's skillful past enables him to free them all. As Rumi stretches and runs into the fight, Jinora puts a hand to Meelo's chest.

"Let the newer gen fight this one," she whispers. "We're too old."

Meanwhile, Yang sees Soma finishing up the fog. Shaw, in the struggle, had escaped inside the clear valley and began grabbing people by their wrists. Yang runs to him and is confronted with several other men. He slams a body with his pole and balances his weight, through his hands, on it in order to kick another man with a mouthful of shoe. He punches short bursts of fire to knock some back and flees the skirmish.

Li Tang removes the last boulder right as Yang arrives back. He swings his pole like a baseball bat and causes a strong swipe of air to knock five incoming distractions down. Yang gets ready to finish the job when a rabid Shaw runs up to him, palms ablaze. Yang matches his ferocity with the same move. Their hands collide. Yang flinches from the attack and kicks Shaw in the gut, causing him to slump down in pain. Yang airbends the body back a few feet and wipes his head.

From afar, Jinora and Meelo inspect the incident.

"He needs to learn mercy," she says. "He's nearly killing people out there."

Meelo slams his foot on the ground. "Are you crazy, woman? That kid's trying to save his world. I'm helping out. I don't care what you old people say."

"Meelo, you're in your fifties."

"And _you're_ almost sixty."

Rumi and Hiroshi run up to reunite with the battle-busy Yang. In the distance, an incoming Dolma, via air scooter, blows over to join her triad of friends. Asuka runs with full power in order to offer firebending reinforcements. At this point, an advantage is clear—an advantage not in numbers, but in skill. While Li Tang begins to get up from her temporary prison and Shaw rushes to the truck, for just a moment, everything is fine.

Dolma and Hiroshi appear completely in sync while battling. Yang glimpses them protecting each other, working together with moves, and knocking down several men in the process. When a firebender nearly gets Dolma, a blast of water creates a mere gust of steam. When a rock is punched in Hiroshi's direction, he's pushed out of its way by a gust of air.

Meanwhile, Yang and Rumi beat around the bush with each other. He knows he needs to say something, but how? _Hey, so you lied to me this whole time?_ No, that's too harsh. He couldn't do that to her. _So I heard you were a combustion bender?_ Nah, that sounds lame. _How was your ability blocked from you all this time?_ Yeah! It sounds like he knows what's going on. _Say that,_ he tells himself.

Yang finally speaks up as he kicks a boulder into pebbles. "So, Rumi, I was wondering…why didn't you tell me you could combustion bend?" _Dang it!_ Yang screams to himself. _You idiot, you had a plan! You ruined it all!_

Rumi, her fiery hair draping across her frail, colorless cheeks, sighs. "I can't bend at all. My chi paths are permanently blocked."

Yang stares for a second without focus and nearly gets hurt by a firebender's palm. Rumi, at the last word in her sentence, jabs the wrist, shoulders, and waist. The man falls over in a paralyzed state and tries to bend a fire ball at Rumi, but nothing happens. She smiles.

"We'll see," Yang says.

"Huh?"

Before Yang could explain what he meant, he had to knock back another man with his airbending. In the distance, he sees his weakened sister still struggling. He tells Rumi he needs to save her and ditches his friend once again to come to the aid of his family. Soma is still bending at the fog, though it appears Li Tang's grip on her is gone. She has finally conformed with the Honglian mindset, or so Yang figures, because she doesn't seem to care anymore.

"Li Tang, I'm done!"

Numerous prisoners from the fog had already ran out by the time she told everyone, but Shaw had only managed to sneak in two or three. With all of the historical humanitarian upsets residing within the fog, a sort of balance became apparent. Now, that balance is upset by the First Lady and his own sister.

"Shaw, take the prisoners and go! I will meet you later!" Li Tang struggles as she gets up from her prison. "Soma, don't let that fog interfere again!"

The woman notices an adamant Dolma rushing to Soma's rescue and bends her down to her knees as she nears the airbending tool. Dolma screams out in pain as Hiroshi and Rumi run to her aid. Li Tang holds out a hand and snatches the air, causing them to come before her like puppets. All three of them are thrown to the ground just as the older generations are cornered once again.

Yang looks at his friends and back at Soma. He shakes his head and leaves his kin behind. Hoping he made the right choice, Yang launches a fist in the air, causing a rock to fly up, and punches at it to scare Li Tang's focus outside of its power.

The rock fails. As a result, Yang soon begins to feel his body being dragged down in such a burning sensation that one of those firebenders almost caused him earlier. He could almost feel his veins stick to the ground like a magnet. His eyes felt as if they would bulge out of his skull and explode. Perhaps they would. Is that a bad thing? Does he want to see his friends tortured? Rumi had just escaped captivity and she was already facing a sort of dehydration all over again. However, instead of saving Yang for last, Li Tang, tattered, bloody, and lethally impatient, decides to finish him first. She holds his body with one metaphorical hand and begins to move her right hand perpendicular to her other—as if to pull the string of a small toy.

Is that all Yang is? A small toy? As his body rushes to keep itself from shutting down, Yang remembers only being used. Varrick used him as a test subject. Asuka wanted him for _The Republic._ Jinora cared about his political stance and even Lu saw him as nothing more than a collectible item, his own form of memorabilia. Maiko played with Yang over and over again, noting the Avatar's premature conditions and childish fantasies.

"I'm sorry, Avatar, but it's for the good of freedom in the eyes of the humane. You shouldn't have interfered with the United Republic in the first place."

Interfered? Had he interfered with Dolma? Yes—he was her scapegoat away from her mother. Hiroshi used Yang to meddle in his father's affairs. Yang had, once again, interfered. But Rumi? What did Rumi make him do? Perhaps disrupt his emotional balance? Whatever the case, maybe Li Tang was telling a partial truth. Everyone was using him, playing with him, as if he was a dollar bill going in a coke machine. They all just picked their own drinks and used him in the process of getting them.

The blood bends further to the ground. Yang struggles to breathe. He glances over to see the others all struggling as well. He hears Shaw calling in the back

"_Li Tang, we need to leave now! The metalbending police are coming!_"

His voice was faint, possibly too faint for Li Tang to hear, but those words—words of salvation, of freedom itself—were ringing through his ears. He yells in pain, but the yelling only intensifies his internal rage.

Li Tang smiles at the struggle. "Avatar, you're stronger than that. I've already destroyed my reputation and you're going to let me ruin yours, too? You haven't even fully realized your true powers yet. You are the most expendable man in the world, yet here you are—lying cold and stiff."

_Stiff_. Where had he heard that before? Stiff legs in the morning? No, that's not it. Stiff. Kaze.

_Don't worry, Stiff I'm just joking. _

And Bolin.

_Don't get stiff on me!_

And Korra.

_You're too stiff to accept yourself._

Three of the most influential people in his life, though for different reasons, have all said this one particular term. Stiff. It fits him perfectly, though. He's indecisive. He's frail, yet he's uptight about himself. He's stiff. Stiff, Yang, they mean the same thing. They're synonymous. They're mere variations of themselves.

"You'll never be a great Avatar if you don't unlock your powers. Many past Avatars could go into the Avatar State at age sixteen—Aang at twelve. You can't even move a puddle of water. You only think about individuals' errors! You never take into account the spiritual world, the negative jing, and the grand scheme of society! How do you expect to overcome such narrow-minded obstacles when you're sitting here sulking in your own self-pity?"

Yang realizes she's right…again—at least partially. He's struggling with the Avatar State because of it. However, his mastering airbending proves one thing—he can listen to Korra, to the spirits, and he will. He knows he's part spirit. He's part of the most important spirit. However, the idea of negative jing is unappealing. Running away from battle? Yang has ran away from verbal confrontations several times, but battle?

As they all struggle under her power, Li Tang stands at the fog's ledge and looks deep inside the new valley of lost souls. She sighs.

"Your friends—they're dying, Yang. You're a failure. As a result," she says with a bend of her wrist, which causes Hiroshi to hover over the ground, "I think you all should be incarcerated to remind humanity who is truly in power—itself."

Yang feels one of his fingers twinge. He frees his hand from her lessened grip and dives into his pocket while she focuses on a terrified Hiroshi. Yang rolls around a metallic marble between his two fingers and starts laughing. He begins with a quiet chuckle and ends in a heave of maniacal hilarity with a few gasps for air in between laughs.

"He's gone insane," Soma says as she sits down on the ground.

"No, Soma, he's fleeing. He cannot cope with failure," Li Tang reminds her.

"You know, you don't know everything," he finally says after recovering. "You think I'm a failure? I mastered earthbending faster than anyone recorded in history!" he shouts.

Yang manages to move a foot onto the ground. He's in a position as if he were a runner about to race off.

"I bend metal now as well as Toph Beifong did in her _prime!_" he overstates as he struggle to get on his other leg. "I learned to bend fire and air in a fraction of the time most Avatars even bother!"

Li Tang gasps as her connection is broken with Yang's blood. He feels his body, seemingly without oxygen for hours, indulging in the now oxygen-rich blood circulating through his veins. Yang grabs the marble and spins it between his hands.

Dolma and Rumi scramble to get Hiroshi as Li Tang drops his body. Li Tang backs off a little as Yang walks over to her despite all of her bloodbending pressure supposedly weighing down his blood.

"And you know what?" he says between gasps for air.

Li Tang narrows her eyes at him. "What?"

"I'm a pretty good shot myself."

Yang tosses the marble into the air and smacks it with his hand. The marble is launched like a projectile missile and smacks Li Tang right between the eyes. She flinches, grabbing at her face, and steps backward to reestablish her footing. She trips over a spirit root ingrained in the ground and lands face-up into the fog. Yang quickly pushes Soma out of the way into the grass and allows the fog to quickly let itself back in its domain. Li Tang eventually gets up and begins to shout about equality, freedom, and spiritual degeneration. Yang slumps to the ground and feels his pounding headache taking emphasis.

Shaw watches the event happen, disregards Soma, and starts the truck so he can drive off with the prisoners he did manage to collect. It's as if he never cared for Li Tang—perhaps she was being used as a toy instead of Yang. The Avatar watches the mysterious firebender drive off. None of them could catch him—his friends were weak, the older people were surrounded by confused, ditched Honglian units, and Yang's head began to swim.

Soma gets up from her fragility and runs to hug Yang. She thanks him and apologizes for everything, but he doesn't feel satisfied. Yang feels weird. A whir of wind begins to take effect around the Avatar's body. He finds himself spinning a million miles an hour, no, more. Soon enough, he loses contact with the physical world for a temporary moment of Avatar-ish hysteria.

Soma, the poor Airbender, watches as her brother is transformed into a ghostly silhouette of mid-twenties Avatar Korra. The woman flicks her bobbed hair back and looks Soma in the very eyes. The woman had made stupid mistakes and gave into the demands of another—she had no sense of spirituality or even humanity since she arrived in Republic City.

"Korra…" Meelo and Jinora whisper with disbelief.

Korra flashes her white-filled eyes and glares angrily at the college-age airbender. "If you won't abide by the principles of airbending, then you won't airbend," she demands.

Korra grabs at Soma's hair, bringing the girl's head up into the air. With a brisk clamping of the thumb to the girl's forehead, Korra closes her eyes, focuses her Avatar spirit on Soma, and firmly destroys any possible connection to her chi paths. Korra drops Soma's temporarily shocked body to the ground and views everyone.

"Jinora," she says with a nod, almost like a tip of the hat.

Then, just as quickly as she arrived, Korra disappears in another whir of wind. Avatar Yang reappears sitting on the ground with his head between his knees and a salty taste of vomit surfacing his secretory glands. Even without doing it, Yang knows he took Soma's bending away. The girl recovers from the scene, but she never fully registers what happens. She continuously attempts to bend, but she finds herself to be the stiff one.

Yang stands up just as Rumi pins him to the ground with a hug. Dolma runs up to hug him, too, as Hiroshi stands awkwardly behind them with his hands behind his head. Friends. For most of his life, Yang was forced to be the bottom of society. Now he feels as if he's at the top of the pyramid.

Lin and the metalbending police begin taking the Honglian unit members away as Asuka, Jinora, Meelo, and Varrick enclose the kids with approving nods and pats on Yang's sore, bruised back.

"You did pretty good firebending out there," Asuka says. "I couldn't have done better."

"If I were you, kid, I'd join bending fights and beat the crud out of snobby kids for money! I would _pay_ to see children get abused by the Avatar," Varrick laughs with a slap to the knee.

No one responds to his comment.

"What? Kids are mean. This one just threw an old lady into the fog!"

"Yang saved everyone!" Hiroshi fusses.

"And he did a decent job getting us beat up, too. I'm going to have to get a few replacement teeth thanks to your friend there. These glistening diamonds are busted as bad as my piggy bank when Dad took my money! He still owes me thirty-four cents."

Jinora and Meelo clear out of the attention of the crowd. They both grin at each other giddily, both out of the success of the new Avatar's bending prowess and the fact they saw Korra after a decade and a half.

"Ikki's going to hate us!" Meelo giggles.

"She already hates you," Jinora snorts.

"Oh, right."

"I wonder where Shaw is going," Yang says as he joins their conversation.

Jinora sighs. "The Red Lotus—the Red Lotus I knew at your age—would be off trying to kill world leaders. Li Tang's new branch…we can only hope they're going into hiding. How many prisoners did that boy save?"

"At least one or two," Hiroshi pipes in.

"Where do you think Aiwei went?" Meelo asks.

"There's no telling. It's just his spirit, but Old Iroh's spirit wanders the Spirit World still in order to help weary travelers. For all we know, he could be educating a future Li Tang at the very moment. I hate to say it, but Zaheer should have ended him completely all those years ago."

While Yang, Meelo, and Jinora speak about the dangers Shaw and Aiwei represent, Hiroshi walks back over to his father in a private conversation.

"Dad, you seriously screwed this one up. You endangered everyone," he asserts.

Varrick frowns, his tanned skin somewhat pale with a sense of disappointment. "I didn't know, son. Besides, I was just giving Yang his destiny. You know, the first build-up-the-drama-and-solve-the-problem type of thing. If it wasn't for me, he'd be making campfires for snotty kids on the street. You should be _thanking_ me, not complaining about me."

"Thanking you? I'm thinking about leaving you. I'll just get set up and go to the Fire Nation with Mom. She'll accept me for a while. Besides, the divorce papers say she gets me in a few months."

"You going alone?" Varrick sighs.

"No—my friends will go. Right, guys?" Hiroshi asks nervously.

Yang, Rumi, and Dolma shrink upon being asked such a question in the middle of a public area. Yang shrugs, Rumi nudges the dirt, and Dolma puts her hands up.

"My mom can teach waterbending, Yang. And Rumi, the Fire Nation has some great healers for chi. Dolma, you may as well come along."

They all nod and Dolma leaves her friends to talk with Jinora. The girl has a slight frown on her face and, though she was saved by Yang, she still feels pulled to the ground in an emotional frustration. She slumps her head on her mom's shoulder and sighs.

"I feel like I did nothing to help Yang out," she says.

Her mother scoffs at the remark. "Dolma, that's a completely stupid thing to say! Without your spirit projection, you wouldn't have been able to get us _and _Asuka there in order to help Yang fight them all. You provided the backup needed. You were just as much a part as the others and, I must say," she pauses and smiles, "your airbending skills were genuinely perfect."

"Does that mean I'm getting my tats?" the girl asks in excitement.

Jinora chuckles. "We'll see."

Asuka breaks up the conversations and gets everyone's attention. She clears her throat and pulls her red hair back. "I've ordered a press conference for Yang and invited _The Republic_ to come get the best scoop on the Honglian Red Lotus branch. It's tomorrow morning. Don't be late!"

. . .

_The Next Morning_

Thousands of people come to the press conference. Many of them, ironically, are not rioting about Humanism. In fact, a good majority of the younger audience peculiarly shouts Lu's name in a rebellious excitement. The small white podium is surrounded by a sea of voters.

Prince Lu, Harmonic Presidential Nominee, stands behind the podium of the press conference's commencement. Behind him, Avatar Yang, Dolma, Rumi, and Hiroshi stand off to the side. As Lu begins to talk about the faults Maiko and his wife made in politics, the four of them begin to whisper to each other.

"So what's next, then?" Yang asks.

Dolma looks at her feet. "Mom's taking Soma home. She'll probably want to teach me more airbending techniques before I get my tattoos." She pauses. "I'm still very good at running away."

"My mom's the CEO of Future Industries, so I'll probably get put in business school. Anything's better than being with Dad right now. She keeps wanting me to take over Varrick Industries and shut it down so she can have a monopoly."

Rumi feels as if it's her turn. "I'm definitely going to the Fire Nation. I have a certain place to visit," she smiles with a touch to the red tattoo of a combustion bender. She then takes a small photo out of her pocket and looks at it. A beautiful young woman embraces her masculine husband. Placed in front of them in the staged photo are a little girl and a slightly older boy. She knows they could be alive. After all, she survived. Why not them?

"Great! I'm going to master waterbending and become fully realized," Yang announces.

"Uh, Yang? You just unlocked Airbending," Hiroshi reminds him.

"I lacked the identity and understanding that Airbending demands. I understand now. All the moves I was taught in school—they all connect into this big mush of spiritual identity and—and I get it now."

"That's great, Yang," Dolma smiles. "I'm happy for you."

"Wait!" the Avatar says somewhat loudly, causing Lu to stop his speaking and glance behind him. "We need a team name. Any ideas?" he asks.

The other three smile at each other at his naivety. "How about Team Avatar?" Rumi suggests.

Yang smiles at the idea.

"While President Maiko is released from jail, he is still being investigated for any involvement with the Honglian terrorist group. However, he is still part of the presidential campaign. I know many of you have voted already, but please remember the dangers his family has caused our town thus far," Lu explains. "On a lighter note, I now give you the most honorable man in the United Republic. Avatar Yang fought his way through unpopularity, the struggles of a kidnapping, and the gigantic conflict with the First Lady just last night. Without further ado, here is your Avatar."

Lu steps off stage quickly with sweat dripping out of the arms of his shirt. He trips down the stairs and lands against the sound equipment, causing a screech to travel throughout the town and pierce the ears of his supporters.

"My bad!" he yells faintly.

Yang trudges up the stage to the podium and looks at the happy crowd. Before, they were rude and disrespectful. Now, though, after Yang did something for them, they are grateful. The monitor above the stage shows a poll count so far, with Lu at 62% and Maiko at 37%. Lu has a clear victory over the man that Yang rightfully accused but wrongfully convicted. He clears his throat and speaks into the microphone with an intimidated voice.

"Hello, United Republic! Through triumph and defeat, knowledge and ignorance, I have come to the conclusion that the town in the Spirit World should be an absolute must." He breathes in deeply. "Trust works both ways, and so we should feel encouraged to explore and share the spirits' world just as much as they do ours. Therefore, to keep the right mindset in this beautiful nation, I am dubbing the town New Spirit City to remind ourselves whose domain we reside in. Until then, new subsidies will be passed out to answer your problems and temporary shelters will be provided by my forced word. The United Republic is going to enter a golden age, I can feel it. Now, do any of you have questions?"

Yang looks nervously into the crowd. He slicks his pronged hair back into place and glances across the stream of waving hands.

"Are your people safe from the Red Lotus?"

Yang thinks for a moment. "I cannot guarantee your safety, but I can guarantee your protection."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I need to master waterbending with the Fire Nation's Kasumi Sato."

"Is your father being the president going to present any bias?"

"My father and I are on great terms with great understandings, but I cannot ruin my role as a medium between worlds. We will do our best to not come to such terms."

One man, a large one with square glasses and an angry face, looks at him with an angry Humanist glare. "Why should we listen to you in the first place? You're a kid!" The man smiles after saying that comment to break the scab of the wound.

Avatar Yang, though, only smiles at his ignorance in a most provocative manner. "Why? I'll tell you why." Yang throws a fist on the table. He goes over to Rumi, drags her forehead, and keeps her hand inside of his. He smiles at his father, his friends, his audience. He smiles. He remembers sitting along on those stone steps while the others play airbending games without him. He remembers bending the stones for the first time at Kaze, and the fire during the festival in Ba Sing Se. He remembers the air blasts thrown at Li Tang to save his family and friends. For the first time in his life, Yang's the one who knows his purpose.

"I'll tell you why, sir: I'm the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it."

End of Book 1


End file.
